"Is this too much?" He said, next to her in one of the bright orange chairs.
She stared down the lane at the pins being replaced. "I don't know. Might be... enough." She shook her head. "No. I don't want to say that. I can take more." She took a deep breath. "So... Kidnapped by Lex Luthor? Okay. Makes sense. Experimented on and chipped? Of course." She gave a bitter sort of laugh. "You know, it's all becoming less surprising. At this point, I'd be shocked to learn she'd had time for a social life, what with the espionage, hacking, and time spent in evil laboratories. And to think... it started in a bowling alley. This bowling alley." She shook her head and looked around her. "How ironic." She frowned, then turned to him. "Tell me about Lana. It's... Lana Lang. Right?"
Clark quickly stood and retrieved his ball. "Why do you want to know about her? You just happened to be here with her." And he kind of wished he hadn't mentioned that. Of course, then she probably would have asked who she was bowling with and he'd promised himself that he would not lie to her. As far as omitting, for now…
"Well, considering it was her bachelorette party and I was the only one there, I figure we must have been pretty close. What's more, I... I can't see anything about her. But I feel this... reaction. Even hearing her name."
Clark released his ball, watching it roll down, basically stalling. He didn't to talk about Lana. Lana required hours of explanation, most of which started with "Lois, I was very young then..." That probably didn't excuse it, but he couldn't help feeling that age had something to do with the perspective he had on Lana now. Seeing her again, he didn't see that girl he'd drop everything, Chloe included, for. He didn't see a fantasy. He saw a person. And, these days, one that wasn't exactly welcome right now.
He watched his ball hit the pins, leaving three standing, and felt guilty for that thought. Lana was lost right now, no idea who she was. He supposed all three of them could relate in that way. Maybe even Lex, as well, from what Lois had said, though he didn't think any of them should be relating to Luthor directly, no matter what pitiful state he was in.
Regardless, he was young then. As far as Lana went, there was no growth. The nature of their relationship over the years left little room for either to do the growing up they should have done in that time, always back and forth... Both he and Lana were to blame for that, for not letting go when it was past time they did. But he could make up for it now. Be a friend to her. Gain some sort of closure on the mess they'd created for so many years and... He really didn't want to think about Lana. Not now.
"Lana doesn't have anything to do with this situation. She never even knew you were infected." He'd never told her. By the time she came back, it was over.
"I guess I'm just curious. I mean, knowing we were friends... I hear she was the prettiest girl in town."
"She was," Clark said, sitting. She still was the prettiest girl in most towns, in her way. "Very pretty girl." Not much else, though, in the end. He pursed his lips. That was unfair. Lana was a lot of other things. They just weren't things he needed in his life right now. "Listen, I only mentioned her because she was there. The point was that it started that night. And you figured it out soon after."
She stared closely at him, squinting slightly. He was afraid she wasn't letting this go and he needed her to. Just for now. He had this fear that, once he told her everything, she wouldn't want to speak to him again and she needed to know as much as possible before that happened. He didn't think she'd absolutely never speak to him again, but there could take time... maybe even years before she'd let him in again. And he needed to be in. Not just for him. But for her. There were some things only he knew.
"Linda told me what it was," she said and he let out the breath he realized he'd been holding. "I can't tell if it's creepy or wonderful, to have something like that."
"A little of both," he said, thoughtfully.
"But how did I just stop being infected? From what I've gathered on meteor freaks, they either die or get put in Belle Reve or... hide for the rest of their lives. I've never heard of any real cure."
"But you were cured," Clark said softly.
"How?"
He leaned on his knees and turned to her, speaking quietly. "The same way the kryptonite stopped powering the spores in my system... and in Morgan Hunter. Years ago, I was cured by the same technology from the same illness, my mom as well."
"The crystal," she said, squinting ahead of her. "From your ice palace, as Linda calls it."
"Just a piece of my... ice palace. When the crystal is in its home, it has more power."
"Power enough to heal the meteor infected." She let out a burst of air. "I knew it. I knew I'd been there."
"More than once," he said softly. "Maybe... maybe we should stop pretending to bowl. As it is, I don't know the score or even who's supposed to pick up those spares." He nodded down the aisle.
"I don't either," she admitted. "Wouldn't it be nice if we did? If this was just two friends, out for a... friendly game? Just..." She trailed off.
"It's never that simple," he agreed. "But maybe it can be... someday."
"Not tonight, apparently." She suddenly stood. "Come on. I want to see what passes for coffee in this place."
********************************
"An evil you. Of course." She nodded. "Of course." She was still trying to wrap her mind around all of it. It was a very surreal conversation to be having at a yellow formica table in what Metropolis Lanes called a "cafe."
"Well, he wasn't all evil. At least... you didn't think he was. You even named him." He answered her silence. "Jonathon. You said he liked the name."
"But... Isn't that your father's name?"
He nodded, his eyes downcast. "I still try to think of him as... misled. Mostly for your sake. But also because... he had pieces of me."
She shook herself, slightly dazed, then leaned in, whispering. "You know, if you weren't Superman and your friends weren't all similarly employed, I'd think this was a tall tale. As it is..." She shook herself again. "So... a computerized version of your father healed me and, consequently, neutralized the meteor rock."
He nodded thoughtfully. "Guess that sums it up."
"But... If he did it for me, why wouldn't he do it for more of them? You could bring them there and he could..."
"I can't," Clark cut in.
"Sure, you could. Just... blindfold them or something. Half the troubles of the tri state area would..."
"No. I can't. The fortress doesn't have enough power to make neutralizing meteor rock a full-time job. It's still recovering from healing me, as I used up most of the direct resources in a major power source, that crystal, then more when I used it for Morgan, and that was with what it drained from Bryce." He sighed. "The fortress is in a weakened state. Especially being in the Arctic. Considering most things Kryptonian are fueled by the yellow sun, I kind of wish my father had decided to set up somewhere that didn't have an Arctic winter."
"Well, I bet isolation has something to do with it. You get a fortress in the tropics and soon you have tourists and restaurants cropping up..."
He chuckled and she gave a weak one, too. See? Laughing over it. Handling it. I'm fine.
"Anyway, you were a special case."
"But... why?"
“Maybe due to the million or so times you saved his son." His eyes were warm and she found herself staring back, feeling sort of fuzzy all over, skin humming with... Stop it.
"Clark, you're leaving something out."
He was suddenly staring into his cheese fries. "The point is that he healed you. He kept up his end."
"His end of what?"
"Of... nothing. He did what I asked him to."
"But you said he kept up his end and that implies you had an end."
"I probably said that wrong." He shrugged. "Anyway, even if... when the fortress recovers," he went on. "I doubt it has any more tricks like that in it."
"So lets just hope we don't come across more needle-toting women with spores," she said, deciding to let it go... but only for now. She had enough to chew on. "So... I used my meteor power to heal Linda, a mouse, you at one point..." She shuddered slightly, thinking of how that had been remedied. Blood, of all things. "Then I went and cried all over the evil you... or Jonathon and he was dusted, releasing the phantom from some parallel dimension, which you sucked into a crystal. Then you took me to the ice palace and a simulation of your father put some krypto-whammy on me and... bye-bye infection."
He chuckled again. "I kind of wish Linda's ice palace thing hadn't caught on." He stared levelly at her. "You should know that that's another thing you can do. You always manage to take something extremely complicated it and boil it down so it seems perfectly clear."
"Then I must be a great faker." She sat back, rubbing her head. "Nothing seems clear to me. Did we have that kind of fun a lot?"
"You don't know the half of it."
"Then don't tell me. I can only boil down so much in a day."
He squeezed her hand. "You're doing great."
She met his eyes, then pulled her gaze and her hand away. "Thanks. I do try."
"Yeah... Well... I wish... I wish I'd just explained it that way. We might have got this out of the way before ordering instead of over congealed cheese fries."
"And cold coffee," she added, pushing hers away.
"I can fix that, at least." He took her cup.
She chanced a look at him, seeing just a flash in his eyes before steam was rising from her cup again. "Thanks." She took her cup again. "Victor said you were getting better."
"Victor said that? To you?"
"Well, I... I asked how your were. He said you were regaining everything. That you were working hard."
He shook his head. "You must mean some other guy named Victor. The one I talk to thinks I'm not working hard enough."
"I'm sure that's not true."
"I'm still short three abilities and the ones I have aren't... they're not good enough."
"Clark, you're trying. I know you won't give up. Not when you know you can help people." She tilted her head, smiling slightly. "You're just that kind of guy. Even with everything I don't know, I know that."
He held her gaze for a moment, then looked away. It was like a game they were playing tonight. "Well, at least I'm good for warming up coffee. No real hope for fixing my fries." He stared at her plate. "But you know, your sandwich was already cold, so at least that..."
"Oh, you can have it." She pushed her plate to him.
"I don't want it," he said, looking up. "I think you should want it. You hardly even..."
"I'm not really hungry."
"But..."
"Clark, I'm fine. I just wanted some coffee. Really."
His face seemed to tighten slightly. "Fine," he said quietly. "Fine." He repeated it, looking away. "You're a grown-up."
There was a sort of tense silence and she wondered if she should take a bite just to make his jaw unclench. But, damn it, she was a grown-up. If she wasn't hungry, she wasn't hungry. Why did everyone have to be in her business, up to and including what and when she ate or slept? Bart was shoving things at her, Linda was trying to force vitamin C powder down her throat, and now Clark was all het up because she didn't want to eat tuna on rye with tomatoes.
"Moving along," she said, hearing the stiffness in her own voice. "There are still a few things that are unclear to me. How did I get infected in the first place? As far as I know, the shower happened in 1989 and I wasn't living there then. Lin..." She stopped. She'd been staying away from this all night. "I asked Linda about that. I she said to..." She took a deep breath, then went on, determined. "She said to ask you about my mother and I... I don't get why? What does any of this have to do with my mother?"
He met her eyes again.
Just then, a loud group of teenagers piled in from the alley, giggling and filling their empty corner. Clark stood, tossing a twenty on the table before Lois could get to her wallet... again.
"Maybe we should take a walk."
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