Before Sunset (Part Thirty-Three)

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I'm borrowing a bit from Mortal, but giving it my own little flavor as we go. Hope you all enjoy! 

Part 33 

"Stop fidgeting," Chloe groaned as Clark's knee, once again, hit her gear shift. 

"I can't help it. There's no room in this... thing. We should have taken the truck." 

"You mean your giant, bright red truck?" 

After a good five days monitoring the pet trackers they super glued under the wheel wells of Lex's town car, Maserati, and Mercedes, they had a sure location. The town car just seemed to go off the grid on the freeway, but she'd gone as far as to follow it (while telling herself it was not a wasted trip. Didn't she want to know Met U campus better, anyway?) and found it was strictly Luthorcorp and back. The Maserati mostly sat in the garage. The Mercedes was where they hit pay dirt. It had often gone to unspecified location, just 29 miles out of town, at least twice a week. She'd waited to check it out initially. Clark had managed to secure a pet tracker by the nest day and it went just to the very dot they were heading to that evening. But it was just so close that she had to be sure it wasn't some kind of mistake. But no. He'd been at that locale too often for it to be a glitch in the Pet Tracker program. 

"You know, this car is red," Clark was saying. 

"But it's small." 

"Which is exactly why I can hardly sit still." He shifted and dug in his jeans. "And this damned thing is poking my hip!" He pulled out the octagonal disk... or key as he called it. 

"Clark!" She gripped it and tried to shove it back at him as she swerved on the dirt road. "You're just carrying that thing around?" 

"Well, what am I supposed to do with it? I can't just leave it sitting around. What if we need it?" 

She pulled to a stop. "And what if someone finds it on you?" 

"I'd rather have it with me in case... well..." 

She sighed. "Clark, finish a sentence. I know everything now." 

"In case we need it. If something goes terribly wrong, I like to know I can get there." 

She shook her head and started up again. "You mean the ice castle?" 

"Don't make it sound so girly. It's a fortress!" 

"Fine, the very manly fortress. But have you thought about how exactly you'd get back from the fortress?" 

He grunted. "I don't know. Same as before. I kind of have an idea of the land around it by now." 

"Well, we can't guarantee I'll hitch a ride to warm you up this time, so put that away." The minute she said it, she knew he'd glom onto it. 

"Oh, so we talk about that now?" 

And he did. 

"I'm just saying things might not turn out the same. I wasn't..." 

"Remembering those nearly-naked hours? Well, I was. But, you know, fifteen days to go." 

She straightened up and glanced at her GPS. They had no real address to go on, after all, just coordinates.So Clark, bringing up things that had just nothing to do with the work, just had to be ignored. That and his countdown. 

It didn't stop her from being perfectly aware of how many days, hours, even seconds, there were to go before... Well, she didn't know what. She refused to think what came at zero. Good or bad, she was damned well sticking to this month, whatever happened. It was all she had. 

That and a mysterious coordinate that fell just outside of the county line. She decided to concentrate on that knowable, tangible thing. 

"Lex's personal car has been here five times," she said as they neared the coordinates. 

"It's been to Belle Reve twice that." 

"The only thing at Belle Reve is Lionel. I've been over the schematics. There's no room for spaceship storage there." 

"But maybe... we should be going there." 

They'd been over this, too. "Clark..." 

"Well, he was carving symbols, Chloe. Maybe we should just stop by and see if he's..." 

"And have Lex accuse you of interfering with his treatment?" She turned to him slightly before focusing on what bare road they had. "You know Lex has him closely monitored. You stopping by will just pull focus right to you." 

"But if he's got some kind of alien infection..." 

"I get that you feel kind of responsible," she said, knowing it was an understatement as Clark seemed to think the whole damned universe and any trouble within it seemed to rest squarely on him. Maybe, in this town, it did. But it didn't make it his fault. She downplayed it, though, because she had to or he'd just never stop brooding. "But this is Lionel Luthor we're talking about. Chances are, if he ended up somehow messed up by alien technology, then it's because he wouldn't stop messing with things he shouldn't." That much was damned true. "Now maybe we can figure out what Lex is up to before he ends up a white-eyed specter, too." 

"But if we can fix Lionel..." 

"To be what? Back to his old self?" she snapped. "The both of us know that does nobody any good? Wallowing in guilt, Clark..." She cut herself off on a groan. "These things aren't even your doing! But you spend so much damned time moping..." 

"Excuse me? You've lived with my secret for about three weeks..." 

"Try five months. I've known since February!" 

"Well, I've lived with it my whole life!" 

"And I would have been there the whole damned time just like I am now!" She stopped the car and turned to him. "Clark, if I knew everything I knew now, even from the start, you know... You have to know that I would have said to you just what I'm saying now. This is not your fault," she said firmly. "There was nothing in this that you could actually control. We just have to deal with what's happened!" 

His face softened. "I'm sorry." 

She could only glance heavenward and sigh. "Don't you dare..." 

"You've been there since before I told you and I..." 

"Clark, don't!" She turned and met his eyes. "Don't make me something else to feel guilty about. I don't ever want to be that for you." 

His brow furrowed. "Chloe... I'm sorry I made you feel..." 

"Jesus, Clark!" She pulled forward again. "Let's make one thing clear -- I don't want to ever, ever, be something you mope about. So just don't. Okay?" 

He was silent as she drove along, following the coordinates, and she thought he must have taken that in. And, she supposed, he must have, with what he said next. 

"Then why are you doing this to me?" 

It was the last thing she wanted him to bring up. Didn't they have work to do? "I'm not doing anything," she said evenly. 

"You're avoiding me."

"I'm in a car with you."

"You're angry with me."

"I am not. I'm fine." 

"I hate that word." 

"What? Fi..." 

"If you get to pick what I do and don't get to brood about, then maybe I get to banish that stupid word. It never means what you say it does." 

She kept her eyes on the road. "When I say I'm fine, I mean I'm fine." And she was. She really was. She didn't lie and say she was over the moon happy. She also wasn't absolutely miserable. She'd committed be being, whatever happened, fine with it. And, damn it, she thought she was doing pretty well! 

There were fifteen days to go. She knew that with his constant count down. And in these days, she would just... deal and be fine, no matter what. She was a damned grown-up now. She'd told Clark there were no do-overs now and that was true. She didn't want to be that angry kid, flying off the handle at every slight. She would take things and just... just figure out what was next. 

"Fine," he sneered. "Fine, fine, fine. Keep punishing me. Even though you know I broke up with her..." 

Yes, she knew that. Lana had even sighed to her about it as Chloe kept her counsel and tried to help her find off-campus housing with the dorms full. But what did that mean? Did that mean she was supposed to just jump into this? No matter who got hurt? 

"And I told you Lana kissed me and not the other way around," Clark was saying, "and it hasn't even happened since." 

"Clark, we have work to do." 

But she knew that, too. That damned kiss... It must have replayed in her mind over and over in nearly exact detail, imprinted on her mind, hurt as she'd been by seeing it at all. But that was good, seeing it. It told her things. Lana had kissed Clark. Clark hadn't kissed Lana. She wasn't a kid anymore. She found nothing in that to make her feel better. Because that was the problem with jumping into this. Someone could get hurt. With all the ways Clark was telling her it wouldn't be her, she still just couldn't do it. She couldn't hurt Lana. Not like this and not right now. 

Sometimes she imagined pulling Clark to her, falling to a bed or backseat, even a spare patch of grass, letting this be some secret they kept. Because they could. The both of them were damned good at keeping secrets. They could keep this. But how would it feel, knowing it wasn't right? 

She wasn't a kid and she wasn't an idiot. She knew most of the reason Lana was decidedly not okay was because she'd been left alone. If Clark had been around, if none of this madness and naked nights had happened, Clark and Lana might be together right now. And maybe that would have been all wrong, like Clark had said. But Lana would be safer and secure and in a better place. She wasn't right now, but she could be. And maybe, if Chloe carried on some secret affair with Clark, Lana could still have time to adjust and be none the wiser. But how would that feel? 

So she couldn't tell Clark, not now. She knew, she knew from every time his eyes stayed glued to her lips or her neckline, that he would think that was just fine. She knew that he could just touch her and make her feel just fine about it. She also knew that this was not how she wanted to start her adult life, as a secret. 

"Punishing to do," he sighed. 

She turned to him with a a heavy roll of her eyes. He was too damned much. "How am I punishing you? Seriously, where are you getting this idea of being punished? Am I yelling and harping on you or giving you regular beatings?" She clammed up and hoped he wouldn't make that somehow sexual... 

Luckily, he didn't. 

"By making me wait," he groused. "You still think me and Lana..." 

"I don't think anything." She was trying damned hard not to, at least. She didn't want to think ahead. Not yet. Not when things were so shaky. She would deal with this like the mature adult she was trying to be. Just day by day... She glued her eyes right back on that dirt road. 

"But you're still making me wait when I'm positive I want to be with you." 

And then he said things like that and made her want to toss her maturity out the window and kiss him senseless. She laughed. "Why would you want to go and do a thing like that?" 

"Because you're kind of amazing," he said softly. 

He was not making this easy. "Or... because we survived together." She forced a laugh. That could still be true, though the further into this month they got, it started to feel false. But she said it anyway. "I get that those situations give you some complicated feelings, but..." 

"Chloe, you believe in me even when... even when there's nothing special about me."

"Don't say that."

"And we're home now. We're safe. My life isn't on the line." 

She chuckled. "Well, it could be if you worked harder. I think you're not as committed to this subterfuge as I am. You haven't even once belly crawled or..." 

"I still want to be with you," he said baldly. 

And, God help her, hearing it made her entire body nearly melt. "I said a month," she said, trying to sound firm and resolved even as everything in her liquefied. 

"And you're still getting it. It doesn't mean I want you less." 

She wished he'd stop this. Right now. 

He didn't, though. He moved closer, even with the restriction of the seat belt, his knee brushing her thigh... 

"I can hardly sleep. It's so hard to sleep without you. All I do is think of those nights and how, even in a damned cave, in the cold, we slept like we were safe and secure. Together." 

"Stop it," she growled. "I need to concentrate."

"See? Punishing." 

She stopped the car again. Because those floaty feelings had gone and now she was annoyed. "Let's just check in for a second." She unfastened her seatbelt and turned to him, even a little annoyed when his eyes went straight to her neckline. "Lex has a space ship. Lana is still deep in the grips of paranoid alien phobia. Lionel is a walking ghost. Your house is still covered in tarps. Town Hall is a mass of rubble. And you want to just ignore all that?"

He had the nerve to look upset. "You know!" 

"Oh, my God," she groaned. 

"You know I want you? And you're still punishing me?" 

"I am not in any way pun..." 

"I've done pretty much everything! I broke up with Lana like four different times! I mean, maybe it took a few, but I passed your test." 

"My test?" 

"Well, it is. Isn't it? And I have done everything you wanted." 

Her jaw dropped. "I wanted! Clark, I told you. You don't owe me anything." 

His knee bumped hers again. "Fine." He shrugged and faced front. "We have work to do, so just... fine." 

"I hate that word," she mocked. But she did drive on. 

"And don't worry. I won't harp on you owing me." 

She gave him the barest glance and swore to herself that she wouldn't even ask. But damn it... "How do I owe you?" 

"It's nothing. It's fiiiine," he drawled, emphasizing the word. "Don't worry about it." 

She put the car in park for what felt like the millionth time. "What exactly do you imagine I owe you?" 

"You don't." He shrugged and it was infuriating. "It's just that I kept score and all. And you're behind. But don't worry about it." 

"Kept score?" 

"You had thirteen and I had twelve, but it's fine." 

Her eyes widened as she realized what he meant. In that clearing, the night before they found rescue, Clark had gone on about who had "finished" the most. Which was stupid then and stupid now and she told him so. "That is ridiculous!" 

"I know." 

"I wasn't the one keeping score on that!" 

"I know." 

"And you seemed to like that you were ahead with the... giving so..." 

"I am. I am totally fine with you behind. I'm just saying is all." He gave another horribly obnoxious shrug. "If you did care about that kind of thing, you'd probably want to even that out. But, you know..." 

She drove ahead, but stopped just as soon as she started. "That's it."

"Hey, I'm not saying you have to, but..." 

"Not that," she said, staring ahead as the wind blew the dense, overgrown weeds slightly flat and what seemed like a mirage cropped up ahead. "I think we found it." 

******************************** 

Clark stayed two steps behind Chloe as they crept ahead as she seemed to be the one with the plan. Or was she? She'd grabbed a few things from her little arsenal, but besides that had shared nothing. "What's the plan?" he hissed, crouching in the weeds when she stopped. It was just a series of buildings with wooden siding, almost Old West in style. He kind of thought his dad might have got a kick out of this, creeping up on this little ghost town in the middle of nowhere. 

"I don't exactly have a plan," Chloe hissed back. "Up till now, this was a dot on a map." 

He couldn't resist. "Don't you think it looks kind of... Western?" 

She turned to him. "What?" 

"I mean, add some tumbleweeds blowing through and..." 

"Would you focus?" 

"Oh. Sure. Sorry. And your plan was..." 

"Well, I don't know. What would you do?" she hissed, sounding peeved. 

"I'd find the spaceship with my X-ray vision, speed up to it, rip open the door and super-speed past the surveillance cameras and find some way to melt it to smithereens with my heat vision." He tried not to sound wistful. And failed. 

"So what you're saying is now that you're human, you have absolutely no handy skills?" 

He wanted to tell her that he'd put up a shelf yesterday, with a screw gun, but that probably didn't apply here. "Not so much," he said dejectedly. 

"Great," Chloe grumbled. "I finally land my own super hero, and this is what I get." 

He perked up at that. "Oh, you landed me?" 

She stiffened in her crouched position. "I meant that I just... finally have you at my disposal, but now..." 

"Have me? Finally?" 

"Shut up. I have to make a plan, here!" 

He stared at her neck as she opened her laptop and bent over it, her beet-red neck -- he knew the color of beets too well now with his mom touting them and their magical stores of manganese. He was positive she was thinking about it, of them and those naked nights and the fact that she owed him. He wondered, if he leaned just a little closer, if she'd turn and meet him, pull him into these weeds and they could forget all about... 

No. Damn it, she was right, with her little rant before. Lex did have a space ship and this was likely where it was. Lana was still deep in the grips of paranoid alien phobia and neutralizing this ship could only help. Lionel was a walking ghost. And his house and Town Hall were still mostly rubble. They had work to do. So he'd best get it damned well done! He reflected that sex and girls and all the things about... well, sex and girls... That was probably a hell of a motivator. He was starting to get why guys did all those damned guy things. Fixing stuff, mowing lawns, wearing ties. Maybe all that was all about... Well, girls. Impressing them, showing off for them, making things just right for them. He hadn't exactly had to try before. Chloe and even Lana just kind of... Well, there they were. But Chloe wasn't as there these days, She was proving extremely hard to impress without powers. He saw that now. He just had to show her how useful he could be without them. 

"I've got a plan," he whispered. It was just forming, but it could work. 

She kept typing away. "I think I have a plan." 

"But mine might be better, pretty much foolproof." He'd seen it work before. 

She sighed and turned to him. He tried not to be annoyed at the lack of faith. "Clark, you don't have any superpowers, so..." 

"We don't need superpowers for this," he cut in. "You'll get the door open and access the surveillance cameras and then loop the same empty hallway over and over. That will disguise me breaking in and... doing some other stuff..." Damn it! Why did the plan stop there? 

"Clark? Have you been watching too many movies?" 

Maybe. That had been where he'd seen the plan work, but she didn't need to know that. "No," he said instead. "See, that'll throw them off the trail so we can..." 

"That kind of hocus -pocus is gonna take hours to rig up," She said lightly, turning back to her screen and typing away. "Sometimes it's easier if you just turn off the power," she said. 

Her words seemed to accompany a low hiss as what dim lights there were in this ghost town in late afternoon seemed to flicker to nothing. Damn her! 

He grumbled, but followed her as she rushed forward, crouching in the weeds, very close to her, when a pair of men in black suits rushed past them yards away. 

"They're going to the generator," Chloe whispered. "But it'll take them a bit to get it started again. We have to go now!" 

"Chloe..." He ran after as she rushed forward, bent over still. It wasn't just that she was apparently way ahead of him. It was that she seemed too damned comfortable with sneaking around. Then again, she must be. Chloe Sullivan was probably sneaking files from City Hall while he was still sneaking Oreos from his mother's cookie jar. 

"Wait," he hissed, gripping her arm at a large sliding door. 

"We can't wait," she hissed back. "They won't be gone for long!" She gripped the wooden slats and pulled it open.

He couldn't shake the nearly panicked feeling as he followed her inside, that something was wrong. But he did it anyway. He snuck in... then stopped cold right behind her, similarly frozen. 

"Lex has a space ship, Clark," she whispered, 

"Yeah," he breathed. 

"I mean, we thought he might, but he totally does!" 

"I know." 

"I can't believe..." 

He gripped her arm as she started to move toward it. He didn't know what it might do to her. Hell, she only stepped into his fortress and was hit with a blizzard. "Don't, Chloe," he hissed. 

She seemed to relax in his grip. "I'm not trying to gloat, but that looks nothing like a rocket." 

"Maybe that's what Kryptonian rockets look like," he said, trying not to pout at how... flat and triangular it looked. 

"And you know for sure?" 

"Well, I might not have powers, but I'm still Kryptonian." He sighed. "But no. I don't know for sure." He looked around. There were cameras in every corner, but the lack of white noise told him they were still off. "Come on!" He pulled her toward it even as she kept stopping to gape. 

"It really is a space ship!" she kept saying. 

"I know," he kept saying. 

He didn't completely understand the wonder, with her knowing he was an alien for nearly a month now. The again. He stopped as it grew closer, big and black and imposing. It was kind of impressive. When he found the ship he came here in, it was very mysterious and dire and interesting and all... But it was also tiny. This ship was huge, more worthy of wonder. By the time they were nose to ship with it, he felt rather cowed. 

"Wait a minute." Chloe moved to a table off to the side. 

"What?" 

"This is some kind of activity log." 

He moved behind her. "Do you think they've already flown it?" He'd always been a bit afraid of flying, crazy dreams aside, but with a space ship... you just had to fly it. It couldn't just sit there.

"Status unchanged, status unchanged, status unchanged," she muttered. "I don't think they've done anything with it. The guards seem to check in every hour, but for nothing." She flipped back a few pages. "They haven't even been inside it. It won't open." 

Clark moved to it. "So how do we get inside it?" That had to be the thing to do, after all. You don't just look at a space ship, after all. 

"Touch that screen," he dimly head Chloe say. "The guards say it does nothing, but maybe..." 

"This can't be easy to get into," he mused. 

"Clark, there's a console right..." 

He squinted hard at the ship. "If I just had a jigsaw or a drill..." 

"Clark!" she hissed. "Would you stop with the power tools, already?" 

He turned to her. "What?" 

"You barely go two seconds without you grunting about mastering the drill or being one with the table saw..." 

"I'm starting to think you just don't understand power tools," he grunted. "A man and his tool are like..." 

"Clark, just... Ugh! Here!" She gripped his hand and slapped it on some kind of panel. 

And a door slid open! A sort of... walkway slid down. 

He turned to her in wonder. "How did you know?" 

"I didn't." She shrugged. "But you said it before. You're still Kryptonian. This ship is Kryptonian, so..." 

He nodded, taking shallow breaths as he moved up the ramp and to the door and the darkness beyond it. "I'm going to go into... a spaceship." With all he'd seen and done, this should be less awesome, but... 

Damn it! He was about to go into a spaceship! 

She stepped back. "Go on." 

He glanced back as he started to see consoles, dark and mysterious and full of strange controls and jutting crystals. "Chloe, you need to see this." 

"I can't." 

"Wha..." 

"I can't." She lifted a foot to the ramp and seemed to just stay there, poised in mid step. "It won't let me, Clark." 

He reached a hand into the opening, waited for something to stop him... but nothing. "But I don't have any powers." 

"It might not know that. But it knows you're one of its kind." She glanced around her. "Clark, hurry!" 

He breathed deep and stepped in, then turned back. "Hurry and what?" 

"What do you mean, what?" 

"Well, you had a plan." 

"Yes. To find the spaceship." She lifted her hands heavenward. "I thought the alien might take it from there." 

"Well, I don't know what to do! I didn't finish my training, remember? Somebody waltzed in and got frost bite and..." 

"Just look around!" 

He nodded. "Okay. Yeah." He started in, then stopped, some flash of awareness making the hairs on the back of his neck stand at attention. That horribly wrong feeling, the one that made him want to stop them coming in here, was back again. He whirled sharply, but only saw Chloe, staring nervously at him... that and a rather large puddle of oil he hadn't noticed before on the floor behind her. 

"Clark. They could come back any second." 

"I know. Okay." He swallowed hard and stepped in. It made him think of the fortress in a way, a place he barely knew. but somehow recognized. It was like some sort of blackened mirror of that, yet sleeker. There were controls, nothing like the buttons and levers of Star Trek. They had crystals, in tight circles here and there. There were no chairs, but there were these raised platforms. He neared one and it seemed to shift as he approached it. He shied away and its surface flattened again, settled. He stared at it as he neared it again and noticed how it shifted, as if beckoning him to it, It's shape seemed to hollow, form a cup. He huffed out a laugh as the shape shifted further, formed the imprint of an... 

"Hey, Chloe! This thing makes its own bucket seats. I think I see a butt print." 

"Tell me later!" she hissed loudly. 

"But it's so cool!" He moved to the platform, let it swallow him up, cradle him, hold him as if secure for flight. 

"Clark! I think we need to go!" 

"What?" He stood abruptly, flinching as the platform seemed to melt back into itself. "No. Not yet," he whispered. Because he'd spent years being afraid of himself and afraid of what he could do and, right now, he was just a kid that loved sci-fi shows and never knew why. And he was starting to think this was why and, even if he never looked through a wall or punched a rock to dust or moved like a bullet through the corn fields ever again, he had to remember this moment. In the end, abilities aside, he was still a kid who grew up on a farm and dreamed of other worlds seen through a telescope. And why the hell did he never stop to take in the sheer miracle of the fact that those other worlds were not only there, but that he was from one? And what was left of it? A few stones and crystals and a fortress he barely got to see. He hated to lose this, too. The crystals that shifted and glowed, the door that started to slide closed, the... 

"No!" 

"Clark, I hear something!" 

Somehow, he knew that that was why the ship was sealing itself, as if protecting itself from outside forces. This was why it never opened for them, but did for him. 

"Clark!" 

He could hear the panic in her voice. He'd be trapped if he didn't leave now. He looked around frantically one last time as he rushed to the opening. Then he saw something. There were crystals all over. They all glowed faintly, but there was one, one larger one in a central cluster. It dwarfed them all and pulsed with bright light and he thought of his fortress, of the crystals there. Of the one that floated into his hand... He rushed to the console and gripped the crystal, rushing to the opening.and leaping through it as the ship shook. He landed hard and felt hands on him, pulling at him. 

"Clark! Are you..." 

He turned to his back, groaning and staring at the ship as it seemed to seal itself shut and grow dark. He sat up, stared at the crystal in his hand. It was dark as well, no longer glowing now and he could see it was nothing like the bright white one he'd held in the fortress. 

But there was no time to wonder at that. There was a faint humming noise under and around them that had nothing to do with the ship. 

"The generators," Chloe gasped, trying to pull him to his feet. 

He scrambled to stand and gripped Chloe's hand in his free one, rushing to the door. He stopped quickly, remembering that large puddle of oil that had been behind her. 

"Clark, what..." 

"It's gone." There was no puddle, not even a drop of oil. 

"What are you talking ab..." 

"...thought I saw someone in the fields just before..." 

She pulled at his jacket. "Someone must have spotted us! We need to go now!" 

He pushed her ahead and ran, clutching the crystal, leaping through the sliding door just as the warehouse lights flicked on, as if chasing them. The rushed through the fields , crouching among the weeds. 

"Clark, what did you take?" she gasped. 

He held out the crystal. "There was one like it in the fortress," he panted. "I thought if I took it, he couldn't..." 

Just over there! I saw a flash of red. 

It was in the distance, but he didn't need any special abilities to hear it. 

Chloe's eyes widened. "Clark, they know we're here." 

"No." they saw a flash of red. It was damned hot, but he just had to wear his stupid jacket. "Not we." It was him they saw. And it would be him they'd find. He shoved the crystal at Chloe, then dug in his pocket, holding out the key as well. "Take these and go, Hide them. I'll find you later." 

She tried to shove them back at him. "No. I can't..." 

"Leave me? Yes, you can. Chloe, you told me how Lex dragged you down to the caves. If he finds you snooping again, he might not be so nice. I can handle..." 

"Don't you dare tell me you can handle him. You don't exactly have super powers now!" 

"And that's just as well. Now get down and stay down!" 

"I will not. If he finds us..." 

"Chloe, if he finds you with me, he'll never believe I didn't find it." 

"The ship? But you..." 

"Yes, but he doesn't need to know that." As he heard footsteps shuffling through the weeds, he just did it, pushed her down as he stood, raising his hands. "Okay, you got me!" he said loudly. 

Two men appeared from the high weeds and he stepped forward, praying they'd focus on him and Chloe would stay the hell down. 

"You are trespassing on private property," the taller one said. 

"I just came here to see a friend," he said loudly, trying to brazen it out and, above all, keep their eyes right on him. "I want to talk to Lex Luthor." 

The smaller man flinched. "How do you kn..." 

"Shut up, Rogers." The other stepped forward, raising his gun. "And what makes you think you'll find that guy here?" 

"I know he's been here and I just... I need to see him." Also, my fiend hiding in the brush needs to get away with the crystal I just stole from his secret space ship and all. "Tell him it's Clark Kent."

The small man, Rogers apparently, looked at the tall man. "File ten-thirt..." 

"Shut the hell up, Rogers," The tall man sneered as he pulled out a radio, his gun still trained on Clark. "We've got a visitor," he barked. "I think he wants to see this one." 

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PART THIRTY-FOUR

I kind of hated that SV had a spaceship and never did anything with it except have Brainiac slither around it a little, then have it disappear. So I had a bit of ship intrigue going on, but not enough to significantly change the plot. As you can see, there was a mysterious disappearing and reappearing blob of oil haunting our duo.

I know I planned to stick with this till the end, but my Almost Series readers have waited so long, so I'm just going to sneak them a quick chapter, then come back to this one for the finish. I won't be long!

BTW, this fic is now award certified! Not only was it...

But it ended up as...

Thanks so much to anyone who voted. It's lovely to feel so appreciated!