Chapter 22

It's easy enough for Clark to scan Lana's former home and find the box Chloe described to him. One superspeed trip in and out later he has it.

He and Chloe retreat to the shade of a stand alone tree amongst the fields. Course being here means they aren't very far away from Clark's old home and the current mutant community. You can see it from here.

They sit down next to each other as they open the box and peruse through what is inside.

Chloe picks up a picture of Louise that was lying on top. "I never get over how like her Lana looks," she remarks as she stares at the image. The resemblance was almost spooky apart from the 60s hairdo and clothes.

"I think I got all shocked out when it turned out Lana is the spitting image of Isobel Thoreaux," Clark says back.

Chloe had to give him that. She returns to the contents of the box and pulls out some rather...passionate love letters. Wow for the 60s these are kinda explicit. Chloe feels the heat under her collar. "Who knew her husband loved her that much," she comments

"Not sure it is her husband," Clark contradicts her. He then points at the bottom of one of the letters. "It's signed with a T," he points out.

"Huh," Chloe remarks. "The Mayor?" she suggests since his surname is Tate.

"We can't assume that," Clark cautions. "It could be a first name initial."

"Your dear old dad feeling romantic?" Chloe wonders about another possibility. They don't know what name Jor-El used when on Earth. He might have chosen something beginning with a T for all they know.

"I doubt it. I'm not getting any memories from them," Clark tells her as his fingers brush over the aged paper. He tries something else and reaches into the box and lifts Louise's pearl necklace from within...and he suddenly gets another memory...

Jor-El is standing behind Louise in the barn. It's day. His hands are on her shoulders and he leans over to kiss her neck. Louise turns around to face him, then walks through the barn, pulling him by the hand.

"I couldn't stop thinking about you all day," Louise confesses, her tone, her expression one of someone infatuated with another.

Jor-El stops Louise and pulls her to him, kissing her passionately.

"I've never felt this way about anyone," Jor-El speaks like a young man experiencing something this intense for the first time. "All I know is I want to be with you."

They share another intense kiss. When they finish, Louise starts walking away again, heading toward the haystacks near the wall. Jor-El jogs after her, turning her around and leaning her against a wooden beam. They kiss frantically, breathing heavily as Louise unbuttons his shirt and pulls it off his shoulders. Kissing her neck, Jor-El unbuttons Louise's shirt and she shrugs it off.

Louise tugs at his tank top and as he pulls it off, they collapse onto a blanket on the hay, Louise lying on top of Jor-El kissing him breathlessly. As the kiss ends, he turns her over gently so that he is on top of her. His silver medallion hangs from his neck, shining in the filtered sunlight coming through the windows of the barn. He leans in to kiss Louise again, running his arm underneath her back as she touches his head, running her hand through his hair, then up his back.

They make eye contact one more time...

...and then Clark flashes back to the present.

"Oh dear sweet Rao," Clark says in disgust as he shudders almost violently.

"What?" Chloe asks with concern at his behaviour.

"Come on!" Clark complains loudly and vigorously to the sky. "Seeing you and Selene wasn't enough? You have to subject me to that!" he whines pathetically, shuddering again.

Chloe's lips curl up as she gets it. "Wow, Jor-El was a spreading his wild oats kinda guy wasn't he?"

Clark gives Chloe the glare of death.

Chloe bursts out laughing. "Oh my God, your face!" she guffaws, pointing at it.

"It's not funny. Stop it," he tells her seriously.

"So is that how Kryptonians see us humans? A chance to get the leg over? You know me and Bobby aren't really all that serious..." she leaves it hanging suggestively, waggling her eyebrows.

"Chlooeee!" he whines.

Chloe bursts out laughing at his face. Oh God this is too good. She's going to bust a rib. She tries to reign herself in. "Ok. I'll stop," she promises before chuckling a few more times. She wipes a tear from her eye. "So the letters are from Jor-El then?" she asks again since she feels this changes things.

"I don't know. I mean I don't have any sort of time scale to work off between when they first met and when that happened."

"Can't have been that long. It was only a few days later she died after that mugging incident."

"Can you fall in love that fast? Because these letters sound like someone in love."

Chloe looks at Clark with an interested gaze. "Aren't you usually the romantic one between us? Lightning striking, love at first sight type of guy?"

Clark shrugs. "Maybe a couple of years ago. I think I've gotten cynical. Could be my terrible luck with women."

Chloe pats him on the arm. "You'll find the one, Clark. Hang in there."

"I'll try," he says with a soft smile.

"So I know you don't want to think on it but was there anything else you saw that could help?"

Clark forces himself to recall the memory. "Not really...except she died in a barn right?"

"Yeah," Chloe says with a nod.

"They were in a barn," he can recall. "Maybe that barn. Do you know where it is? If it's still standing?" he asks because they could try their luck there and see if Clark can trigger any other memories.

"Yes. As matter of fact I do," Chloe answers.

And Chloe is as good as her word as she leads Clark right to the barn...after he put the box of Louise's possessions back where he found it.

Clark wanders round the barn touching object after object, waiting and hoping for something to strike him. He removes the cover from an old car that is here...and the memory hits.

Jor-El is resting his hand on the car, now much bluer and shinier. Louise is leaning against the car and she and Joe kiss in the barn. It's night. The kiss ends as Louise reaches for the buttons of her blouse.

Jor-El stops her by saying, "I have to leave tonight."

"I'm leaving with you," Louise insists.

Jor-El shakes his head sadly. "I told you, that's not possible," he has to refuse.

"I can't stay with Dex anymore, I don't love him. You're the one I want to be with," Louise says, pleading with her to take her with him.

"Where I'm from we wouldn't be accepted," Jor-El tries to make her understand.

"I don't care what people think. I never have." Louise then laughs ironically. "Dex says that's my curse."

Jor-El steps closer to Louise and touches her face gently. "No, Louise. That's a gift," he says with sincere, deep emotion.

"We're not that different, Joe. I'm willing to try," she argues.

Jor-El steps past her as if trying to come up with a way to explain how different they really are. "This wasn't supposed to happen," he confesses over the situation he has found himself in. "I have to return home alone."

"Why?" Louise asks, clearly confused.

Jor-El turns to face her. "Because it's my destiny. I can't change it," he says with a fatal sounding tone. He walks up to her cups her face, clearly, desperately longing things were different. "Louise, as much as I want this, I can't have it."

Louise's eyes begin to water.

"My father told me that someday I'd understand that my actions have consequences. I guess this is what he meant," Jor-El says, finally understanding why his father sent him to Earth at this moment.

Louise fingers the medallion around Joe's neck. "It's not fair. We should be together," she whispers in desperate sadness.

Jor-El takes Louise into his arms, holding her tightly, committing it to memory as this will be the last time.

It is then Lachlan Luthor walks into the barn holding a gun, and Jor-El sees him first.

"Louise," he speaks sternly as he pushes her out of the way just as Lachlan fires bullet after bullet at Jor-El. The bullets hit him in the chest, but have no effect. Lachlan and Louise look on in shock. Then Lachlan drops the gun and runs out of the barn. Louise slowly looks down and sees blood dripping down her white blouse from a bullet wound in her chest.

"Joe..." she whispers, her strength quickly fading.

Jor-El turns to Louise and catches her just as her legs begin to give out. He helps her gently to the ground. "No. Louise?" he queries in shock and heartache at seeing what has happened. "Don't leave me," he begs.

Louise replies weakly, "I'll never leave. I love you."

Louise's eyes close as she dies.

"Louise... No. No, Louise," Jor-El cries in pain and upset as he pulls Louise into his embrace. "Louise..."

Clark blinks back to the present.

"Clark?" Chloe queries now getting a feel for when he's having a memory flash and recognising he just had one. "You're crying," she realises pointing at his face and the trickling of water from his eyes.

Clark reaches up and wipes the tears away. "She wanted to go with him," he whispers, partly still coming out of his flashback, partly in shock at what he saw.

"Go with who, where?"

Clark swallows and pulls himself back together. "Jor-El...back to Krypton," he answers, his voice returning to its normal strength. "Well home with him. I don't think he had told her the truth," he corrects himself what he thinks is the situation. Though he can't be certain what Jor-El has said or not said to Louise. That's the problem with seeing things in the wrong order.

Chloe's eye bulge slightly at hearing that revelation. "Was that possible?" she asks.

Clark shakes his head. "No. Even if she could survive in Krypton's biosphere, which I'm not certain she could, Krypton had a very different atmosphere composition to Earth, they would never be accepted. By that time Kryptonian society had become very insular and had a pompous, superior attitude of other cultures, especially humans. Plus they would never have allowed the risk of her polluting Kryptonian purity."

"That doesn't sound like a very nice culture, Clark," Chloe has to comment.

Clark shrugs. "Jor-El never liked it either. It's one of the few things we agree on. It's part of why he was sent here as a punishment I think. You know showing him what a flawed, primitive culture looks like. The Kryptonians, they had just come to believe they had achieved a form of perfection for their society and a human from a primitive culture, brought because Jor-El fell in love with her, would have disrupted that perfection. From what I do know the plan...my grandfather's punishment for Jor-El backfired. His time on Earth convinced Jor-El all the more that Kryptonian society had to change. That its ingrained beliefs were not only wrong but causing stagnation to the point we were at risk of going backwards."

"Imagine that. Us poor, primitive savages taught a great old advanced alien civilisation a lesson," Chloe says with a wry grin at the irony.

"Well you taught one citizen of that civilisation," he corrects her. Clark looks at the spot where he saw the memory, of where Louise died. "She was a brave woman," he remarks. "Didn't like being told what she could and could not do. Didn't really care what other people thought. Her husband told her it was her curse. Jor-El said it was a gift," he relays more detail on the memory he saw to Chloe.

"It was...especially in that time," Chloe thinks. She finds herself admiring Louise a little.

"This is where Jor-El learned...or thought he understood why his father sent him here. About his actions having consequences. His relationship with Louise had convinced her to leave her husband for him but he knew no matter how much he might want her, he couldn't have her. She couldn't return to Krypton with him. He realised what he had done by allowing himself to be governed by his feelings alone and not thinking it through," Clark relays what he got from experiencing that memory.

"Very...human," Chloe remarks with a quirk of her lips.

Clark chuckles lightly because she's right. It is very human and very odd to think his father acted like that. He sighs. "Though the lesson was soon reinforced. He was here when she died...and I know who shot her."

"Who?"

"Lachlan Luthor. He...was trying to shoot Jor-El actually."

"The bullets would bounce off right?"

Clark nods. "One of the ricochets went right through her heart and she died in his arms. She died saying she loved him," he tells Chloe, his voice tinged with sadness and regret. Whether it's his or Jor-El's doesn't really matter.

Chloe's heart feels it. Really she does. It's sad.

"That's why he was so sad in those memories I have from his time on Nova Roma. He really was on the rebound. Though I'm not sure it lets off the hook for sleeping with the evil, life-sucking sorceress."

Chloe manages a smile at Clark's joke. "You alright?" she asks him because he was crying.

Clark nods. "I'm fine," he assures her.

Chloe then frowns in puzzlement. "Wait. Lachlan Luthor?" she inquires.

"Yes?"

"He should have still been in jail," Chloe works out.

Clark looks at her with intensity. "Do you have his records to find out what happened?"

Chloe shakes her head. "No...but I can get them. Got a friend who works in records storage."

"Of course you do," Clark accepts with a grin. That's Chloe. She wouldn't be who she is without her sources and friends everywhere.

Clark next meets up with Chloe at the Torch a few hours later after the school day had finished. He had spent the afternoon just running around Smallville, taking the opportunity to enjoy the wide open spaces of his old home and re-familiarising himself with his favourite haunts. He could have flown around but that would increase the risk of him being spotted and he didn't want to draw unnecessary attention. He was here low profile. No Superman. Just Clark Kent.

It also gave him some time to process what he had seen by himself which he preferred.

When he met up with Chloe she had one of those bad news, good news things to report. Bad news; her friend in records storage had found that the logbook for that day Louise died was missing. Good news; she had an inspiration and got another friend at the local paper, the Smallville Ledger, to look up the newspaper's police blotter for that day and that friend was bringing it round.

Clark sits in his old chair in the Torch and contemplates how he truly, truly misses this. Him and Chloe working together.

"You seem happy," she comments by looking at him, seeing the smile on his lips.

"Just remembering old times in this office."

That makes Chloe smile in a nostalgic fashion. "Yes. How does the lunch menu get printed without you around again?" she jests about all it seemed he use to do.

Clark sticks his tongue out at her.

"Oh that's mature," Chloe says sarcastically.

"No, I believe that's Smallville."

Clark nearly chokes at that voice. "Lois?!" he splutters in shock at seeing her appeared at the door.

The brunette gives him a look. Those glasses are still hideous on him. "So what brings you back to the town named after you?"

Clark gives her a glare back. "For your information Lois I've been sick all week and Dr McCoy thought some fresh country air would do me good so I came down with the Professor," he gives the 'official' reason he's here.

"Well as long as you don't give it to me I'll let you off the hook."

"Shouldn't you be resting up or something?" he asks, pointing at her arm.

Lois glances down at it. "It's only a scratch. So you'd thought you bother Chloe?"

"He's not bothering me," Chloe tells her cousin. "I like Clark's company."

"I guess someone has to," Lois mutters.

Clark has to restrain the urge to throttle Lois...again. He's up to 127 occasions he has had to restrain that urge. He's been keeping count...and that figure is really saying something when you consider just how little time he has actually spent in Lois' company. She is just that annoying to him.

"Is that what I asked for?" Chloe asks, pointing at the bundle of papers in Lois' arm.

"Oh. Yeah," Lois says, finally remembering why she came here. Damn Smallville distracting her. She places it down on Chloe's desk.

"So how is work at the Ledger?" Clark decides to be polite and ask. That's how Lois was the one who brought the papers. She works there and has access to their archives. She's the 'friend' Chloe asked.

"It's tiding me over until I can get a place in college and that internship at the Planet," Lois replies.

"Don't be modest Lois," Chloe tells her cousin. "You do good stuff."

Lois smiles. It always means more that coming from Chloe.

"Though your spelling is still atrocious," Chloe mumbles under her breath as she tries to find the report she is looking for on Lachlan Luthor in the papers.

"Hmm?" Lois queries at that while Clark smirks having heard it perfectly.

"Hmm?" Chloe asks back.

"You said something."

"I said thanks Lois. You're the best cousin ever," Chloe quickly covers herself.

"Well...that's completely true," Lois says with a smug grin.

Clark rolls his eyes at Lois' smugness and arrogance at just accepting that.

"So I take it this is for your Mayor Tate investigation," Lois assumes why Chloe asked her to do this. Lois knew all about it naturally.

"Yep," Chloe confirms.

Lois picks up the old newspaper from Chloe's desk with the picture of the 'drifter'. "So Smallville?" she queries, turning it in his direction. "Your grandfather?" she wonders, making what she would deem the natural assumption considering the time difference.

"I don't know, Lois," Clark lies. "All I have been able to find out about my birth family is that they're all dead," he says, which is a mixture of truth and lie. They are all dead but that is not all he knows.

Lois isn't a complete bitch. That's Lucy. She does feel sympathy for him that he has lost his birth family. It must suck. "But you're here helping because you want to find out?" she queries from him. That would seem like a safe assumption to Lois.

"I'm here to help my friend, Lois and to discover the truth so if an innocent man was wrongly convicted justice can be done. If I find something out about my family it's completely coincidental and secondary," he sort of twists it. It's not a lie. He would help Chloe at the drop of a hat but he is also here to get answers for his messed up memory and sake of his sanity.

"And he's been a big help," Chloe says in Clark's defence. "We think we might know who really killed Louise and it wasn't her husband. I just need to check something...oh dear," Chloe says as she finds what she's looking for amongst the papers Lois brought.

"What?" Clark and Lois say at the same time before glaring at the other.

Chloe sniggers. Those two are just priceless.

Clark tries again. "What, Chloe?" he asks her.

"Well you suspected Lachlan Luthor was the murderer," she reminds him but says it more to get Lois up to speed.

"Gee a Luthor. Why am I not surprised," Lois mutters sarcastically. The Luthors were like a nexus for all douchebags in the world. She must remember to get how Chloe and Clark figured that out.

"Well that day Louise was murdered he was released from jail that morning," Chloe informs them of what she has found.

"A few days for armed robbery?" Clark queries with a frown because that seems lenient to say the least.

"Yeah. That's suspicious," Lois agrees. "Who released him?"

Chloe reads out who it was. "Billy Tate...better known today as our honourable Mayor William Tate."

"I smell a police corruption story," Lois says excitedly.

"Well why don't we just ask him tomorrow at the town meeting?" Chloe proposes with an enthusiastic gleam in her eyes for getting her teeth into a juicy story.

Lois has the same gleam in her eyes. "Good idea," she agrees.

"You can stay over with me if you want Clark," Chloe offers him a bed for the night.

"Is Lois still living with you?" Clark asks first.

"Yes. I am," Lois tells him.

"I'll sleep in the x-jet," Clark decides with a smirk aimed at the brunette designed just to annoy her. Though in truth he prefers that over a night under the same roof as Lois.

Lois huffs.

Chloe giggles. Those two...better than Comedy Central.

Smallville Mutant Community...

Night had fallen and Charles was outside looking up at the stars, contemplating many things. Clark had told him about his day so far and of the fresh wave of memories from Jor-El and what his father did before, as far as Clark can tell, he made that fateful trip to Nova Roma. Charles knows all about what happened next there.

Strange how involved it seems Jor-El got with Lana Lang's family. Lana's great aunt. Selene, who is a distant direct ancestor of the Lang family. Jor-El probably didn't realise...probably.

It's all very strange and not as irrelevant to why he is here as might first seem. If the Mayor was involved in the murder, and admittedly they had no proof or motive yet, but for argument's sake say he was...then he has to be held to account no matter 5 decades have passed. Then the Mayor who is causing Lilandra so many problems would be removed from office.

It would completely transform the situation.

However Charles can't make any assumptions. He must attend this meeting as if there wasn't this suspicion over the Mayor. He has to help Lilandra win the argument. It's vital not just for her and the mutants in Smallville but for mutants everywhere who have a right to live in communities across the country...across the world.

Tomorrow will be a very important day.

"You should be resting," a melodic voice speaks.

Charles turns his head to see Lilandra walking toward him. "So should you," he gently retorts.

Lilandra comes to stand next to him and does what he was doing. Look upward at the stars. "So waiting for the Gods to answer a question or just wondering what's up there?" she asks about what he was doing.

"And here I thought you were psychic," Charles dead-pans.

Lilandra smirks. "I am. That being the case either is a possibility. Up there are where the Gods live...along with much else."

"A believer in life beyond this world?"

"Well it only makes sense. So many stars. Life has to be around some of them."

Yet Charles senses, without violating her privacy, that it is more than a belief. It's like she knows it for certain. Strange. He hasn't given away Clark's alien heritage as far as he knows. He looks at her in profile. She's so lovely. He so wishes...for something he hasn't felt for a woman in ages yet they never get a chance to spend any time together. Lilandra is someone, he feels, who understands and accepts the demands of his work. Something a certain Amelia Voght never did. Lilandra is someone who is patient and gentle and full of love and care. Someone he would trust to know and keep the secrets he must keep and understand why he does.

Lilandra glances down out the corner of her eye at him. She feels something for him she hasn't felt for a man in ages. How she wishes it was simpler than it is and that they could get to be a lot closer. She told him a story about her life and while it was true it was not everything. Charles is a remarkable man. Look at him, here because she asked without hesitation, grumble or complaint. Follows a code that you can't help but admire. Not to mention charming and witty. The perfect companion in many ways...at least for her. Might even be the one who can understand her last secret. The one she has never told to anyone else.

Just not today.

For both of them.

The one good thing about both being telepaths is that they don't need words to know that they don't need to rush it or force it. All they need right now is just to be in each other's company.

It would be why without saying a word her hand slips into his and they continue to look up at the stars in comfortable silence.

Author's Note: Poor Clark having to see his dad get it on with another woman. The therapy bills are going to be astronomical. Ah Clark and Lois together again. Though Clark probably wishes they weren't but as Chloe says they're comedy gold with their sniping at each other. Thanks to everyone who wrote reviews. Next up; Relic part 3 and the day of the town meeting.