Author's note: This one's a little weird, but I hope you guys like it anyway. This story is almost done. I've got a couple more chapters and an epilogue to get you hyped up for the next one. :) The next story will be more of an Action/Suspense story and I've made a lot of progress on it. I can't wait to share it with everyone.

Chapter 7

Lana's Final Vision

After the sun went down that night, Deputy Birdego entered the Talon in his uniform, with his sidearm holstered at his side. The front door was still unlocked, so he let himself in and approached the counter, but he was surprised to see that the place was empty.

"Miss Lang?" He called out. "I have a few more questions I want to ask you. Miss Lang, are you here?"

He came to a stop by the counter and looked around, but when he still didn't see anything, he turned away and headed back towards the front exit. He was just about to leave, when he heard a noise back behind the swinging door on the other side of the counter.

Turning away from the front doors again, Deputy Birdego put his hand on his sidearm, but kept it holstered as he called out, "Miss Lang?"

Suddenly, some guy wearing a race car jacket and a mask came in from behind the Deputy. He had goggles over his eyes that glowed red in the dim light, and he pistol whipped the officer when he turned around to confront him. Then he knelt down and took Birdego's sidearm, before approaching the counter himself. In each hand, he now carried a different gun, but like the Deputy, he was surprised to see no one there.

He was just about to go around the counter to investigate, when Clark emerged from the back in his blue jacket and red t-shirt with a smirk on his face. "Lana isn't here, but I had a feeling you'd come. I've been waiting for you, Deputy Watts."

The guy in the mask aimed both of his guns at Clark and blasted holes through the front of his exposed shirt. After shooting him in the chest five times and getting no reaction from him (not even a flinch or blink of his eyes), he turned to run.

Clark ran around Deputy Watts and blocked his exit. Then he grabbed him and pulled the mask and goggles off by hand, confirming his and Whitney's suspicions.

"Let go of me, you freak!" Deputy Watts cried.

Clark smirked again. "Sure thing."

Then he threw Deputy Watts across the seating area, and he came down on top of a table near the stairwell that led to the upstairs apartment and tipped the whole thing over. As he slid down off the tabletop, he landed on a chair, tipped it over as well, and dropped both of his guns when the back of the chair smacked against the floor with a crash.

Clark knelt down beside Deputy Birdego to make sure he was alright. "Deputy, are you okay?"

The injured officer opened his eyes and groaned, but didn't answer. Watts scrambled back to his feet in a panic and tripped over the chair. He nearly fell again, but he regained his footing and ran around the front counter, before making his escape out the back exit. His guns remained on the floor where he dropped them, since he forgot to grab them on his way out, but he was far too concerned with escaping to care.

After bursting out through the back fire exit, Watts went over to his big, white van which was sitting in the shadows behind the Talon. While he fumbled around with his keys, a commanding voice stopped him in his tracks. "Freeze! FBI!"

Watts dropped his keys and put his hands up, just as Clark came out the back with Deputy Birdego at his heels.

"Put your hands on your head and turn around," said the voice.

Watts did as he was told, and he turned to see Bobby Singer pointing a gun at him, while wearing his FBI outfit. Birdego joined in and aimed his gun at his former partner as well.

Clark watched in amazement as the injured deputy maintained his professionalism, even though his former partner had just struck him over the head. "Gary, you have the right to remain silent! Anything you say can be used against you in a court of law! Don't say anything until you get a lawyer!"

Watts glanced at Birdego and smiled. "Hey, Mike! Thanks for the advice, but I've got something to say!"

Deputy Birdego called for backup on his shoulder mic, while Gary Watts shared his story. "I never meant to hurt Chloe. It was all a setup, to see if Clark would save her."

Deputy Birdego glanced at Clark with a puzzled look on his face, but then he turned his attention back to Gary again. "Gary, buddy! Don't say anymore, alright! We'll get you a lawyer and sort this whole thing out!"

Gary looked at Bobby next. "I was working for a reporter from the Inquisitor. His name's Roger Nixon and he offered me money to help him find the truth."

Bobby smirked. "Burying teenage girls alive for cash… You're a real piece of work, you know that?"

"He was blackmailing me!" Gary cried. "I told him to go to hell, but he wouldn't take no for an answer. I didn't have a choice!"

"We'll put out an APB on Nixon," Deputy Birdego said. "Just get down on the ground and no one else needs to get hurt."

When Gary dropped down to his knees and started to lower his hands, Birdego reached for his cuffs and Bobby glanced at Clark. While they were distracted, Gary reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a small revolver that he had stashed in there, but his former partner was much quicker on the draw.

Gary aimed his gun at Bobby, but a shot rang out across the empty parking lot as Deputy Birdego shot his former partner in the head. Bobby aimed his gun back down at the dirty cop, but by then he had already been hit, so he just watched as Gary Watts slumped over on the ground and died.

Deputy Birdego turned to look at the front of Clark's shirt and jacket, and he was amazed. "I can't believe Gary shot you."

Clark zipped up his jacket to hide the bullet holes in his shirt, but by then it was too late. "I'm alright, you don't have to worry about me."

Still in shock, Birdego turned towards his fallen partner. "Go home, kid. I'll take care of this."

While Birdego was distracted, Bobby watched Clark turn into a dark blue blur and vanish into the night. Then he shifted his gaze back to the Deputy. "I'm sorry about your partner."

The Deputy nodded, as he looked at Bobby with sadness in his eyes and reached up to feel the bump on the side of his head where Gary struck him. "Thanks. Are you really an FBI agent?"

"I was," Bobby answered. "I'm retired though."

Deputy Birdego smiled at him. "I appreciate you coming out of retirement, but you nearly got yourself killed."

Bobby nodded and smiled back, but neither of them said anything else while they waited for Sheriff Miller to get there with reinforcements.

Lana was at home with her Aunt Nell, Whitney, and Dean while Clark waited for one of the two deputies to show up. She was outside on the porch, sitting on the wicker couch by the front door, when the guys explained what Clark was doing.

"Clark's doing what?!" She cried, suddenly furious. "He could get killed doing that!"

"He's with my friend Bobby," Dean explained, while he leaned back against the porch railing. "And he's gonna call the police once they find out which Deputy attacked Chloe."

Lana glanced at Whitney, who was sitting beside her on the couch. "Why didn't you try to talk him out of it?"

Whitney stared back at her like a deer in the headlights. "His mind was made up, so there was nothing I could do. Besides, we're trying to protect you from that psycho."

Still looking disgusted, Lana got up off the couch and headed for the front door, but the moment she grabbed the door handle, she had her final vision. In it, she saw the man in the mask enter the Talon and attack Deputy Birdego. Then she saw him snatch the fallen officer's sidearm and approach the counter.

When Whitney saw Lana freeze up, he jumped up and put a hand on her shoulder. "Lana, what's happening?"

"She's having another vision," Dean told him.

Whitney tried to gently shake her out of her trance, but she remained frozen in place, just as she saw Clark step out through the swinging metal door and appear behind the front counter.

Clark smirked at the dirty cop. "Lana isn't here, but I had a feeling you'd come. I've been waiting for you, Deputy Watts!"

Lana gasped when she saw the guy shoot Clark in the chest five times. When that failed and he turned to run, she saw Clark block his escape and grab him.

"Let go of me, you freak!" Deputy Watts cried.

Clark smirked again. "Sure thing."

Then to Lana's amazement, she watched as Clark threw Deputy Watts across the room and he landed on the table, knocking it over. She watched him scramble to get up off the chair he fell on and make a run for it out the back door, where he was then confronted by Bobby Singer. From there, she watched the entire scenario play out and heard everything Watts, Bobby, and Birdego had to say.

She started to hyperventilate when Watts pulled out his hidden gun and aimed it at Bobby. Then she felt the sudden pain and saw the blackness when Deputy Watts was shot in the head. With a cry, she fell over backwards, and Whitney caught her in his arms.

"Lana!" Whitney cried.

Dean grabbed the door handle and opened it so Whitney could carry her inside. Nell started to panic when she saw that her niece had passed out, and she prepared a place for her to lay on the couch, with a comfortable pillow under her head. For a moment, Lana was out cold, but when her eyes suddenly opened back up, she started to hyperventilate again.

Whitney got down on his knees beside the couch and placed a gentle hand on the side of Lana's face, so he could turn it towards him and look into her eyes. "It's okay. You're gonna be okay."

"Clark!" Lana cried. "He… He…"

Behind Whitney, Dean stood there and watched Lana intently with his arms folded over his chest, while her Aunt Nell came in with a glass of water. "Whitney, give her this."

Whitney helped Lana sit up. Then he took the glass from Nell and handed it to his girlfriend. After taking the glass from him, Lana took a large gulp of water and handed it back to Whitney, who set it aside on a nearby table.

"What did you see?" Dean asked.

Lana put a hand over her forehead and closed her eyes. "I saw Deputy Watts get killed. His partner shot him…"

"Oh, God," Whitney said as he got up and sat on the couch next to her. "At least it's over now."

Dean continued to stare down at Lana, but when she suddenly looked up at him, he could see from the look she was giving him that Clark had done something incredible in her vision. When she finally calmed down enough that she could speak, she explained everything that happened, but left out the part where Clark got shot. The moment she got to the part where the crooked officer had met his end, she was unable to say anymore, and Whitney hugged her while she cried on his shoulder.

It was about an hour later before they heard any news, but when Clark finally came along, he was wearing the tan jacket that he had been wearing when he confronted Justin Gaines out in the barn.

Dean was waiting outside on Nell's back porch when Clark crossed the property line and walked up to the house. As soon as he saw him, he called out, "Hey, Clark!"

Clark waved to Dean but didn't smile as he headed for the porch steps and climbed up. "How's Lana?"

"She's doing okay," Dean told him. "But she had another vision while you were gone. I think you should talk to her."

Suddenly looking nervous, Clark raised both of his eyebrows. "What did she see?"

"Everything," was Dean's answer.

Then Whitney came out on the porch and gave Clark a friendly greeting before he headed inside. Once he was alone on the porch with Dean, Whitney sat down on the steps to think.

Dean took a seat on the steps as well and glanced over at Whitney. "Now that Watts is dead, Lana shouldn't have any more visions."

Whitney glanced back, but then he looked up at the stars above before speaking. "Hopefully. They really freaked her out."

Dean nodded, to show he understood. "Mm-hmm."

Then Whitney laughed nervously. "Ya know, your friend Bobby seems to know a lot about this kind of stuff."

"Yeah, he's kind of an expert."

Whitney sighed and started wringing his hands while he sat there, looking out at the lawn. "Does he know anything about demons?"

A surprised look came over Dean's face as he locked eyes with Whitney. "Do you know anything about demons?"

Whitney hesitated to answer at first, but when he finally did, he confessed his sin. "Yeah, I sorta met one. I made a deal with it to save my dad, when he was dying in the hospital."

"Were the demon's eyes red?" Dean asked.

Whitney furrowed his brow at Dean. "Yeah, how did you know?"

Dean smirked. "I know a thing or two about demons, but Bobby knows a lot more than I do. What did the demon want?"

"My soul," Whitney muttered softly. "In ten years, it's gonna come for me."

Dean clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. "You know what that means, right?"

Whitney nodded. "Yeah. I'm gonna go to Hell unless I can find a way to get out of it."

"I hate to say this," Dean started to explain. "But once you've made that deal, there's no going back. If you try to get out of it, either that demon's gonna come for you early, or…"

"Or what?" Whitney asked. "It'll kill my dad?"

Dean nodded. "Yeah, and it'll be a helluva lot worse than watching him die in a hospital bed."

Whitney stopped to think, and the two of them became quiet for a little while, but after a few minutes, he finally spoke again. "You seem to be an expert yourself. Quick question; are you really Clark's cousin?"

Dean chuckled and smiled at Whitney. "Not really. Me and Bobby are hunters. This is what we do."

"What does 'not really' mean?" Whitney asked.

"It means I was adopted into the family."

"Does Clark know about demons?"

Dean chuckled. "Yeah, he does. Any secrets Clark has are about me and my family."

Then Whitney finally got to the point and asked the biggest question that was on his mind. "Can you or Bobby teach me how to do the things you do? I'm going to Hell, so I don't have a future anyway, but maybe I can still do some good in the world."

Dean reached inside of his jacket, before pulling out a piece of paper with Bobby's number on it. "Let me talk to him first. He's a paranoid son of a bitch, and you don't want to catch him off guard, because he won't be off his guard, if ya know what I mean."

Whitney took the piece of paper from Dean and laughed nervously, just as Clark came back outside. He noticed the guys sitting on the steps, but said nothing to either of them as he slipped between them and started heading home.

"Hey, Clark!" Whitney called out to him.

Clark turned and forced a smile. "Whitney."

"Are you okay?" Whitney asked. "Lana was worried about you earlier."

"Yeah, I'm fine. Deputy Watts tried to shoot me, but he missed."

Then Clark returned to the farm and Dean got up to follow him, but Whitney headed back inside to be with Lana. Bobby met up with the Kents in front of the barn not long after, and told the boys that the Sheriff was going to the Carnival Ground to check out the area, after Chloe's descriptions of where she was held gave them a good idea of what to look out for.

After about three hours of driving, Ellen arrived in Smallville in a large pickup truck, with Tess in the passenger seat beside her. Even though Jo had insisted that she go with them, she was instructed to stay behind with Ash and hold down the fort. Tess wasn't all too happy with that decision either, but she understood that Ellen was concerned about keeping them safe from the Luthors, so she didn't end up losing any more of her family.

After pulling into the parking lot of the Medical Center, Tess and Ellen hurried inside and went straight to Pamela's room, where they found her lying in bed, with an oxygen mask over her nose and mouth. Her eyes were closed as well, but since she was still breathing, they knew she was still alive.

Tess opened the door to her mother's room and approached her bedside with tears in her eyes. "Mom?"

Pamela's eyes fluttered open when she heard her daughter's voice, and a smile lit up her face when she saw her, despite being at Death's door. "Lutessa…"

Tess put her arms around her mother, who weakly hugged her back. "We got here as soon as we could. How are you feeling, Mom?"

As Tess was pulling away from her mom's embrace, Pamela pulled the oxygen mask down over her chin and answered, "Oh, I've felt better. I'm just glad you're here. How was your trip?"

Ellen brought a chair over to the bedside for Tess and said, "We squealed the tires a few times, flung a little gravel, but we made it."

Pamela chuckled after hearing Ellen's description. "You put the pedal to the metal, huh?"

Ellen smiled at Pamela and put her hand on Tess's shoulder after she sat down in the chair. "We were worried about you, Pam. The nurse that called said you weren't doing so good."

Pamela took hold of Tess's hand with hers and squeezed it. "I'm gonna be alright, I think."

"Have the Luthors stopped by at all?" Ellen asked.

Pamela glanced up at Ellen and said, "Lionel hasn't, no, but Alexander… He comes to see me every chance he gets."

"I can't say I'm surprised about Lionel," Ellen said. "But Lex…"

"You have nothing to fear from him," Pamela said. "He's a good man."

Tess looked at the oxygen mask over her mother's chin and asked, "Are they keeping you comfortable? Do you need anything?"

Pamela smiled at Tess and nodded. "I've got everything I need right here. Tell me about you. How are things going up there in Nebraska?"

Tess started sharing stories with her mom about all of the wild and crazy things she'd been doing with Jo, and she told her about all of the hilarious things Ash said and did whenever he was around. While she and her mom chatted, Ellen glanced back and saw Lex out in the hallway, watching them through the window.

He smiled at her briefly, so Ellen looked down at Pamela and said, "I'm gonna go get some coffee. You want anything, Tess?"

Tess shook her head while she kept her eyes on her mom. "No, I'll be okay."

Then Ellen left them alone and stepped out into the hall, so she could find out what kind of a man the son of Lionel Luthor really was.

As soon as she stepped out of the room and shut the door behind her, Lex grinned at Ellen and whispered, "Thanks for bringing Lutessa here. It means a lot to Pamela."

Feeling a little suspicious of Lex, Ellen looked into his eyes and told him, "Pam says you're a better man than your father. For Tess's sake, I really hope she's right."

Lex's smile faded, as his expression started to match the sadness that was in his eyes. "And you have Pam to thank for that. Look, I don't want to disrupt Lutessa's life, but I'd like to get the chance to know her."

After looking into his eyes and seeing genuine concern in them, Ellen began to relax a little. "I'll discuss it with Tess later, but right now, she needs to spend time with her mother."

Lex nodded and a faint smile appeared on his lips. "Of course. If Tess ever needs my help, let her know she can call any time."

Ellen glanced back into the room and noticed that Pamela had closed her eyes again, but at first everything still seemed peachy. "She's got Jo and I watching her back, so I think we've got it covered."

Then Tess suddenly cried, "Mom? Mom!"

Lex glanced at Tess as well and his face fell when he saw her kiss her mom's forehead, before burying her face in her hands and bursting into tears. Ellen hurried into the room and wrapped her arms around the poor girl's shoulders, just as it became clear to Lex that Pamela Jenkins had passed on from the world.