Emmeline walked over to Chloe's desk just in time to see Jimmy angrily storm off. She handed Chloe a cup of coffee. "That didn't look good. Are you guys okay?"

"Yeah, we're fine," Chloe said shortly. "We were supposed to have a date tonight and something else came up."

"What's so important that it couldn't wait one more day?"

"It just couldn't."

Suddenly, Clark zipped over to her computer and looked at what was on Chloe's screen. "Chloe, can Dr. Curtis Knox take a backseat? I need your help."

Chloe went back to her desk and started writing down the address showing on her computer. "You're gonna have to hang a bell around your neck so I can at least hear when you're coming."

"I need you to help me find Kara's missing crystal, all right? I need you to check the databases, satellite imagery—"

"Clark," Chloe interrupted. "You're gonna have to fly solo on this one 'cause my dance card's completely full."

"Chloe, this is important."

"I'm sure that it is. Look, I know that from Mount Olympus, the view must seem like us mere mortals have nothing better to do than help you look for your crystal, but believe it or not, I have important things to do, too."

"Chloe?"

Chloe rushed out of the Daily Planet before either Clark or Emmeline had a chance to say anything.

Clark turned to Emmeline. "What just happened?"

"I'm not completely sure. When I got here, it looked like she and Jimmy were kind of in a rough spot, so maybe that has something to do with it. I don't know where she's running off to right now though. Maybe she's got a lead on a story or something. Well, I came here to catch up while I was on my break, but I guess I'll just head back to the clinic."

She started to walk out, but Clark followed after her. "Hey, Em…Lana told me what happened the other day."

Emmeline turned around so forcefully that Clark took a step back. "Don't."

"Don't what?"

"Whatever it is you're about to say, I don't want to hear it, okay? I have to get back to work."

As Emmeline took off up the stairs, Clark stood there in shock. How had he managed to tick off both of his best friends in the span of three minutes?

Chloe finished addressing two more letters just as Clark and Emmeline walked into the apartment.

"How's your article going about Dr. Knox?" Clark asked.

"Uh, he's doing some interesting research, but I don't-I don't believe there's a story there," Chloe answered.

"Neither do I. Chloe, you're a good liar. You've had lots of experience keeping my secret, but I don't believe you're researching Knox for an article. I think it's about the procedure."

"…Then you realize that he's my only hope. Dr. Knox said that he could fit me in at the end of this week."

"Chloe, you don't know anything about this doctor."

"I know that he can give me a chance at a normal life."

"Look, I understand wanting to have a normal life, I do. But brain surgery is not the way to do it."

"You don't understand, Clark. Going psycho or turning into a serial killer aren't the only two things I have to worry about. When I healed Lois in that dam, it almost killed me. Who's to say the next time I try and save someone isn't my last?"

"What are the side effects of the procedure?"

"Potentially memory loss."

"Chloe—"

"If I have to give up a bit of my past to gain a future, then so be it."

"You're gonna forget everything. You're gonna forget your friends, your experiences…you're gonna forget me. You're gonna forget me."

Chloe laughed tearfully. "People will be there when I come back to fill in the blanks. In time, I'll be fine. Clark, if you want to save me, let me go."

Emmeline was just heading out of the clinic when Clark rushed up to her.

"Em, have you talked to Chloe recently?" he asked quickly.

"What? Why?"

"That guy Dr. Knox isn't who he says he is."

"What are you talking about?"

"Lex put six bullets in his chest and I knocked him into a transformer, and he's still alive."

"Geez. Do you mean…he's invincible? What does that have to do with his operations?"

"Lex was using him to erase the memories of his 33.1 victims. And now Knox is killing his patients."

Emmeline's heart skipped a beat. "He's doing what? Why?"

"I don't know, but we need to find Chloe before he gets to do it again. I've been calling and looking everywhere, but I haven't been able to get in contact with her."

"Okay, let's go to the Planet and find out when anyone saw her last."

The two of them rushed over a couple blocks and headed down to the basement where they saw Jimmy sitting at Chloe's desk and sifting through her documents.

"Jimmy, where's Chloe?" Clark asked. "I've been looking everywhere."

Jimmy sighed heavily. "We had a major misunderstanding, C.K. I need your help."

"There's no time. Where is she?"

"Well, she's jumping to conclusions. She stormed out of here before I could explain."

"Did she say where she was going?"

"No, no, but she dropped off this Rubik's Cube of a rant, and I have no idea what it means." Jimmy held up a letter and read some of its contents. "'After tonight, I might not remember you, so don't let me forget why we belong together.' I don't get it. C.K, what's happening tonight?"

Clark clenched his jaw. If he didn't find Chloe soon, she wouldn't remember anything because Knox would have killed her. "I think I know where she went. Jimmy, don't worry, everything's going to be fine."

"What are you talking about? Is there something I should know?"

"I don't have time to explain. I just need you to trust me."

Clark started to walk out the door, and Emmeline knew that he was about to speed off.

"Clark," she called. "Take me with you."

"No way, what if Knox tries to kill you too?"

"I'm not a meteor freak so he has no real reason to. Clark, Chloe dropped off a letter for me at the clinic. She said that she was counting on me to help her remember why we're best friends and that she hoped I would be able to patch things up with Lana so I would still have someone if something happened to her. It took everything in me not to rush off and stop her. And now I'm finding out that she might get killed because I didn't. So take me with you."

Clark could easily zoom off right now without her, but she was being so adamant about it that he had a hard time telling her no. And besides, any time they wasted arguing was another second Chloe's life was at stake.

"Come on."

Clark took Emmeline to Dr. Knox's office. When they stepped inside, they found that several items had been knocked over, indicating a struggle had taken place. Neither Chloe nor the doctor were anywhere in sight.

Clark knelt down and picked up a now-broken pocket watch.

At that moment, Lex walked in with two of his security guards.

"Where did Knox take Chloe?" Clark demanded.

"Look, Clark, I want to stop Knox as much as you do," Lex said. "I've checked every address we had on file. They're all dead ends."

"He didn't disappear into thin air, Lex."

"No, but he's had a lot of experience covering his tracks." Lex pushed a button on his phone and said to someone on the other end, "Send me the pictures on Knox." He then hung up the phone. "I used face-recognition software to run an image search." His phone dinged with a new picture message. "Here we go."

Clark and Emmeline looked at the picture which showed Dr. Knox wearing a swastika armband and sitting next to none other than Adolf Hitler.

"Knox wasn't alive during World War II, Lex," Clark said doubtfully. "He's too young."

"He's much older than he looks. This is Knox in 1888."

Lex showed them another picture which was a painting of Knox with a well-groomed goatee.

"And here he is in 1675."

Yet another picture showed another depiction of Knox looking just the same as he did on his current clinic website.

"Clark, he's had 1,000 names, and he's lived for centuries. That's why you can't kill him. Curtis Knox is immortal."

"Well, he couldn't have gotten far." Clark held up the pocket watch. "He must've dropped this in the struggle with Chloe. It stopped less than an hour ago."

Lex took the pocket watch from him and examined the inscription on the back. "'Este perpetua'. 'May you live forever'. It's a Roman greeting. I've seen this before." He went through his picture messages and found another one of Knox standing in front of a fancy building.

"The Victorian Arms?" Clark said, looking at the writing above the door.

"Knox was the robber baron who owned it. He lived there in the '20s."

"Maybe he never moved."

Strapped to a table, Chloe tried frantically to think of a way to get her out of this whole mess. Dr. Knox was supposed to save her, not kill her. Instead of getting cured, she was about to have her organs harvested to make a psychopath's wife live forever.

"If your wife is sick, I can cure her with my abilities," she pleaded.

"Sophia's perfectly healthy," Dr. Knox smiled as he moved over to the unconscious body lying next to Chloe. "I've induced her coma simply to reduce her stress before the procedure."

"You put her in a coma because you knew that she would freak if she knew that you were playing fatal games of operation with innocent people. That doesn't sound like eternal love to me."

"You've been around, what, two decades? What do you know about true love?"

"I know there's someone that I want to live to see again."

"A schoolgirl crush. Very quaint. Unfortunately, you won't be able to say goodbye. Now, let us begin."

Chloe's heart sped up when Dr. Knox opened up a pouch full of several very sharp and horrifying knives. "I came here for help, not to be cut open by some Jack the Ripper wannabe!"

Dr. Knox smirked as he removed one of the knives. "I was Jack the Ripper."

Chloe screamed as he began to push the knife into her chest.

Suddenly, Clark zipped inside and shoved Knox across the room. "Chloe?"

Clark started to undo the straps on Chloe's wrists, but he was suddenly hit with that all-too-familiar feeling of agony. Much too late, he realized that several jars were spread all around the room filled with kryptonite liquid that was preserving the organs Dr. Knox had already harvested.

Emmeline rushed into the room. "Chloe!" Seeing her strapped to a medical table, she quickly ran over to her and began to undo the straps on her wrists, ankles, and neck. A strange pinching feeling started at the base of her neck and began to move through her arms and legs, but she ignored it in favor of saving her best friend from dismemberment.

Dr. Knox picked up an axe he had on display.

"Clark!" Chloe cried in alarm.

Mustering up all of his energy, Clark weakly tried to stand.

"Your powers might be far beyond those of mortal men," Knox growled, "but you've met your match."

Knox swung the axe at him, but Clark quickly caught it in his hands, pain coursing all throughout his body.

"I won't let you kill anyone else," he told the doctor.

"I'd kill a thousand more to never have to be alone." Knox hit Clark in the head with the blunt end of the axe and then took another swing that just barely missed his torso. "You don't know the pain of living centuries watching the women you love grow old and turn to dust!"

Clark dodged another swing. "You and I are more alike than you think."

Knox punched him in the face. "I won't go through it again!"

When Knox went to swing the axe at him again, Clark quickly stepped aside, and Knox ended up swinging the axe right into the machine that was keeping his wife alive. Sparks flew everywhere and the machines slowly came to a stop.

"Oh, no…what have I done?" Knox said in horror. He quickly went over to his wife and took her head in his hands. "Oh, no, no. No! My darling."

Chloe jumped up from the table and shoved the cart full of liquid kryptonite far enough away from Clark that he wouldn't feel its effects anymore. Once the pain and agony subsided, Clark weakly stood back up.

Sophia's eyes slowly opened for a moment.

"Please don't leave me," Knox begged. "Please."

Sophia's eyes closed and her head tilted back and went limp again.

Knox collapsed over his wife's dead body and wept bitterly at his loss.

Chloe's eyes filled with tears as well as she realized how close she had come to death, and the reality hit her that she was not going to be able to be cured of her meteor abilities.

Emmeline put her arm around her and pulled her close. She could only imagine how much she was hurting, and she had to make sure that she knew she wasn't in this alone.

When Emmeline opened the door to her house, she wasn't too surprised to find Chloe standing there in tears. "Hey," she said softly.

"Hey," Chloe answered.

"Come in."

Chloe stepped inside, and the two of them sat on the couch in the living room. "Jimmy, uh…broke things off again."

"What? What happened?"

"It's my fault. I…I couldn't tell him what was going on with me. About, you know, the whole meteor thing."

"Why not?"

"It just opens up a door I'm not ready to walk through with him. I want to, but I am just so…scared. I don't know how he'll react or what he'll think of me. He doesn't exactly have the greatest views of meteor-infected people right now. But I don't blame him for not taking that well. I mean, we saw what happened with Clark and Lana when he wasn't truthful with her, right?"

"I guess."

"Are you and Lana still on the outs?"

"Yeah, we haven't spoken since I found out she was back."

"Look, I was a little upset with her too, but she was in a really bad place. We knew that when she started getting involved with Lex."

"That doesn't change the fact that she lied to us. I can't move past that so easily."

"She's one of your best friends, Em."

"I know. Which makes what she did hurt that much more."

Clark walked into the clinic, and the little bell above the door chimed its welcome.

"Oh, hey, Clark," Emmeline smiled from behind the front desk.

"Hey, Em. Are you free soon? I thought we could get lunch."

"Oh, sure! Just give me like ten minutes."

"Okay."

Clark sat down on one of the chairs in the waiting room while Emmeline disappeared in the back to finish up her current task and clock out for her break.

"Okay, I'm ready!" she smiled once she stepped back out.

The two of them went out the door and started walking down the street.

"So what happened to Dr. Knox?" Emmeline asked.

"My Martian friend took care of him. He didn't get into the details, but he made it pretty clear that we won't have to worry about him again."

"I know he's a psychotic murderer, but can you imagine living for thousands of years with no end in sight? I would be more surprised if he was actually still sane after all this time."

"It's a problem I'm worried about. I'm probably going to end up outliving everyone close to me by who-knows-how-many years."

"Clark, your life has been in danger over a hundred times just since I met you. I'm more concerned about me outliving you."

Clark chuckled softly. "So, Em…um…look, Lana told me how bad she feels about everything that happened last week. And—"

"Clark," Emmeline interrupted, "what's going on with me and Lana right now is between us, and because you can't remain objective when it comes to her, please just stay out of it."

"I can be objective."

Emmeline stopped walking and turned to face him. "Really? So what were you about to just say?"

"That you and Lana care about each other and you don't want to lose the friendship you have with her. She was dealing with a lot of really bad situations at once, and at the moment, all she could think about was getting away from it."

"Did you notice that in everything you just said, you didn't consider at all what I'm feeling?"

"I just don't understand. Aren't you happy she's alive?"

"Of course I am. But that doesn't mean I'm not still angry at her."

"Can't you try to see things from her point of view?"

"Can't you try to see things from mine?" Emmeline took a steadying breath. "Do you remember what Dr. Knox said when his wife died? He said that he couldn't go through that again. And that is one of the first thoughts that came into my head when I saw that Lana was actually alive. I was finally starting to accept that she was gone, and then I realized that I was going to have go through that loss all over again one day. I don't know if I'll be able to bear it a second time. And unlike all the times where I thought you or Chloe were dead and then you weren't, the difference is that this went on for months and all of it was her choice. She willingly decided to put me through that pain twice."

"I really don't think she ever planned on coming back."

"That doesn't make it okay!"

"It wasn't easy for her to make that decision."

"But she still made it! You know, everyone has made an endless amount of excuses for her and told me multiple times that she's sorry and she feels bad and I should just forgive her. And I know that I eventually will. I just need time to feel upset and process everything first. And no one is letting me do that or even acknowledging the fact that I feel so hurt and betrayed. I mean, do you think I want to feel like this? Of course not, but I do!" Emmeline took another shuddering breath. "I think maybe we should do this some other day."

She turned around and walked back inside the clinic while Clark could only watch her go.

I've actually met Dean Cain, and fortunately, he's much more like Superman than Curtis Knox. He's a total sweetheart!