Asylum Part 1

Recap:

Lex is going through his day at Belle Reve. Clark pays him a visit. As he walks through the halls, he meets several familiar faces: Eric Summers, Ian Randall, and Jeff Palmer. Lex says he knows Clark's secret and asks for Clark to free him. When Clark says 'no', Lex responds violently. Later that night, Lex makes his own escape but is captured as he tries to scale the barbed wire fence.

Opening theme song…

At Smallville High…

Clark whistled as he walked into the physics lab. In his hand, he held a bouquet of yellow roses. Alicia stood at her normal station, wearing a lab coat and safety goggles.

"Hi, stranger." Alicia smiled when she looked up.

"These are for you." Clark presented the flowers to her.

"Clark, I love them." Alicia accepted the bouquet, but as she tried to inhale them, the blooms wilted. "Can you help me with an experiment?"

"Of course. What do I have to do?"

"Have a seat." Alicia pointed to a chair that looked like the ones found in dentist offices.

Clark did so, but no sooner had he settled in than straps burst from the chair, wrapping around his body, lacing him tight against the chair so he could not move.
"Alicia!?"

"Shhh." Alicia stood in front of him. The lab coat and goggles were gone. She now wore a form fitting red dress. "This is to make you feel better."

Clark began to panic as all his struggling could not break the straps holding him down. Alicia briefly left and returned pushing a cart that held a gigantic magnet. Alicia connected wires from the magnet to Clark's head.

"I know you've been feeling down lately about what happened to Lana. So, I've come up with a plan. I'm going to use magnets to change your cranial impulses to remove all memories associated with Lana. In fact, all emotions you had towards her will be transferred over to me.

"Now," Alicia pulled on two rubber gloves, "stay still. This won't hurt a bit."

Alicia brought out a whirring bone saw from behind her back. She brought it closer and closer to Clark's head. His struggle became real, and he finally broke through the straps. As he sat up, Clark saw that he was in his bed, a tangled mess of sweaty sheets around him. There was no giant magnet; no physics lab.

It had only been a nightmare.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Clark retreated to the kitchen for a slice of pie and some milk. Ever since that awful day when Lana was hospitalized and Lex was thrown into Belle Reve, Clark had been having nightmares. He only remembered the most vivid ones. Clark had dreamt meeting Lana in the halls of Smallville High. If he even touched her with a finger, an entire limb broke. When he tried to help her by carrying her to the hospital, all that arrived was her skeleton. The next vivid dream had been about Lex. Clark dreamed that he busted his friend out of the asylum, only for Lex to put him inside a jar where a dozen scientists had stared at him.

But tonight's nightmare had been about Alicia. Clark couldn't understand it. Throughout this entire ordeal, Alicia had been the one person he could turn to. After Clark left the hospital that night, he told Alicia everything. She listened and held his hand as he cried over what he had done.

The next day, Clark asked Alicia to come to the hospital with him.

"Really?" Alicia had asked. "Are you sure she wants to see you?"

"What do you mean?"

"Clark, she said she wants to 'stay away' from you. I don't think she'd appreciate a visit. From you, that is." Alicia came over and lifted his chin. "I know this is hard on you, but it's what she wants."

Clark only sent a 'Get Well' card instead.

And as Lex was entrapped in Belle Reve and Lana was stuck inside the hospital, Alicia was there for him. Chores and writing articles for the Torch only kept him so busy. Pete was distracted by basketball practice. When he wasn't; Pete was off doing something else. The "something else" was something he never explained. When Clark did ask, Pete got very defensive. Chloe was keeping busy herself. With what, Clark didn't know now that she no longer had a Daily Planet column.

Alicia provided much needed distraction. She set up movie nights, walks in the town where they strolled down Main Street hand in hand. Through it all, Alicia was there. She was there for him and knew some of Clark's secret. And what Alicia didn't know, she accepted Clark to keep to himself.

"Clark, are you all right?" His mom asked as she came down the stairs, bleary eyed and in her bathrobe. Right away she noticed her son was drinking straight from the bottle. Without even asking, she poured some milk into a glass for him.

"I had a nightmare."

"Again? Was it about Lana or Lex this time?"

Clark frowned. "Actually, it was about Alicia."

"The two of you seem to be getting really close."

"Yeah." The truth was, they were getting close. And Clark was enjoying every minute.

So why a nightmare about her?

"Want to talk about your dream?" His mother took a seat beside him.

"Not really."

"Clark, why do you think things will be different with Alicia?

Because she knows about me. Clark still hadn't told his parents this little detail.

"It just is," Clark said instead. "Alicia and I don't have the history Lana and I do. It's…freeing."

"I just don't want to see you hurt again." Martha patted his hand. "You know, maybe these dreams of yours will go away if you visit Lana in the hospital."

"I can't."

"Clark…"

"She doesn't want to see me, mom." Clark gulped. "I'm going to respect that."

"You're up early," Mr. Kent said joining his family in the kitchen. He was already fully dressed ready for a hard day's work.

"Clark had another nightmare."

"Want to talk about it?"

Clark shook his head.

"Well, you're free to help me extend the fence before you have to go to school."

Clark threw himself into the physical labor. He knew he wouldn't be falling asleep again. As he went inside the house to get ready for school, he noticed a parcel was on the front porch addressed to him.

The contents were just a cellular phone and a note which read: We should talk.

LLLLLLLLLLLLLLLLL

Clark retreated to the loft to make the phone call. On the back side of the note was a phone number which he immediately dialed.

"Hello, Kent." The garbled voice answered immediately. Clark recognized this as the synthesized voice of the Smallville Shooter. This was a moment Clark had been waiting for. If he was able to use his super hearing to hone in on the actual voice, Clark could identify the true killer.

"Hi. I didn't catch your name."

The voice on the other line chuckled. "Nice try. Three times now, you've gotten in my way. I want you to know, your way of thinking is flawed. See, you seem to believe that you're the hero and I'm the bad guy with a gun, when we're on the same side."

"Is that so?" Clark strained his ears to hear past the auto filter.

"We both want the same thing: to protect people. You just don't see the big picture. The freaks are your true enemy. Not me."

"Like you said: you have the gun." Almost there.

"I owed you Kent. All of this, everything I am doing, is because of you. You inspired me. You even showed me the error of my ways. But that stops now. Don't get in my way again, or I can't guarantee your safety like last time. By the way, who was with you at the Melville place? Was it Jordan? Is that how you got there so fast? That freak can see the future, is that it?"

The mention of Jordan broke Clark's concentration. He shut his eyes to get back to where he was before. "Jordan has nothing to do with this."

"If he's infected, he does. No freak is innocent. And one by one they are going to pay."

Almost there! Keep talking. "So that's your plan? Just kill them off one at a time?"

"Oh, no. I have something much better planned. It'll be like shooting fish in a barrel."

There! For the last three words, Clark heard the true human voice.

"What do you have in mind?" Clark needed him to say something else. But the line was already dead.

The voice sounded familiar. Clark knew he had heard it before.

He just couldn't remember which face the voice belonged to.