FIC: Forget Me Not

[ladydreamer]

Title: Forget Me Not
Pairing: Chlara, hinted Clark/Davis and Dinah Lance/Barbara Gordon
Rating: PG-13
Summary. Post S8 Abyss, spoilers for Bride. Kara comes home for a day to find out that Chloe has forgotten all about her. She decides to do something about it.
Author's Note: Thank you to herohunter and lexalicious
For thelittlebang
Word Count: 18115


Part One

Clark should have known that when Kara said she was leaving, she wasn't going to leave completely. There was something about Kara that always made her look at Clark a little bit like a chubby baby who laughed when you tickled him in the right spots.

The dreadlocks of the Phantom Zone might have been gone, but there was a hardness to her now, even when she was helping herself to the last of Clark's Choco Puff sugar cereal. The austerity of the prison his father had created remained, even once she had cleaned and coiffed herself in that special Kara style that made her golden curls bounce in a way Clark didn't want to think too closely about on someone who was a blood relative.

So when Chloe showed up on his doorstep, Clark felt more than a bit of anxiety at the frown Kara was giving to him. His long time friend babbled on emptily about wedding plans and how light and content she felt.

"Well, aren't you going to introduce me to your friend?" Chloe finally asked with a laugh.

Clark blinked in confusion and looked around. He'd half thought that she might have been talking about J'onn, who had a bad habit of sneaking up behind him.

"The girl," Chloe clarified. Kara looked up from her bowl of puffs and milk and blinked in disbelief. Chloe came over to her and smiled warmly. "Sorry. Clark was raised on a farm, and has no manners. I'm Chloe. And you are?"

Kara wiped her mouth and cocked a brow. "I'm Kara." She paused, waiting to see a light go on in Chloe's eyes, but it seemed like the light had gone out. "Clark's cousin."

"Oh! I didn't know you had any cousins, Clark!" Chloe looked back at him and shook her head. "Well, how are you liking Smallville?"

"It… has its moments," Kara answered, letting her eyes drift questioningly to Clark, who seemed incredibly interested in dishwashing at the moment. "It's a strange place."

"It really is. Are you going to be in town for long?" Chloe pulled up a chair and sat back to talk to Kara.

"Um… for a day. Maybe a little longer. Depends."

"Aw. I would have invited you to my wedding!" Chloe said excitedly.

Kara shrugged. "I hate to crash the big day."

"Well, if you're still in town on Saturday, come by. We can squeeze one more in. We're having the wedding in Clark's barn."

"A wedding? In a barn?" Kara shook her head. "On my planet we don't have joining nuptials where animals sh-"

"Kara," Clark warned.

"Sleep," she finished.

Chloe narrowed her eyes and tilted her head at an odd angle. "We wanted to save on wedding costs. You know, save the money we would use to rent a hall for our lives." She raised her hands. "It made sense on planet Chloe. Maybe not on the planet every other girl is on."

Kara watched Chloe laugh, and stared at her in confusion. Chloe was acting funny, beyond just flat out not remembering Kara at all. For some reason that disappointed Kara more than she wanted to admit.

Chloe stood and went over to pat Clark on the back. "Take it easy. I don't want you straining yourself on this farm when I need you to give me away at my wedding."

When she had left, Kara rose slowly. "Why doesn't she remember me?" she said quietly. She dropped her bowl in the sink, giving him a hard look.

"Well, you two didn't even seem to get along that well. Maybe she's jerking you around," Clark suggested.

"We got along fine, Kal-El," Kara snapped. "Chloe was never bitter with me because Jimmy left her, and she never gave me the indication of being two-faced. She even spent time with me showing me how to find information about this planet and how people around here dress and act. That girl who was just in here was not Chloe Sullivan!"

Clark sighed heavily. "I had the Fortress remove her memories of my secret. Brainiac was taking over her mind."

Kara was silent for a long moment. "Are you kidding me? How long has she known? She doesn't seem to remember me at all."

"You two barely had a relationship," Clark argued. "It doesn't matter. All that matters is that she's safe."

"Uuuugh!" Kara groaned, turning from him roughly. "You are just like your father. You're just like my father. Taking memories from me when you think it's best! That's not right. It's not fair." She turned again and glared at him. "You don't get to decide what a girl can and can't remember, Clark!"

"That's not what I was doing. I'm her friend-"

"And friends should be able to trust their friends not to go sneaking into their head and stealing their memories!" Kara exploded. "I don't believe this. I must not know you at all, if you could do something so selfish."

"It isn't selfish," Clark snapped. "I sacrificed this for her."

"Except she's the one making the sacrifice. I don't know why you can't realize that she's the one who's had to give up however many years of her memories that she was making while she knew your secret. You've given her a lobotomy." Kara crossed her arms and looked out the window. "You've destroyed the most beautiful part of her."

"Kara-"

"I've got to go."

Kara could move faster than Clark, and she could fly like nothing he'd ever seen—not even J'onn could fly that fast when he had powers—so Clark had no chance of catching up to her. Clark leaned out of the screen door and watched the bluish trail she left in her wake. Knowing Kara, this was not going to end well.

***

Upstairs in her room, Chloe slid her garter over her sleek, muscled thigh. She remembered dropping some weight last year. She remembered wanting to be able to run faster, better, if she needed to.

She must have been training for a marathon. She didn't think that she'd actually competed, but she would have to ask Jimmy. About a week ago, she'd suffered and inexplicable stroke, and it had left her memories in shambles. She was a lucky girl, that Jimmy still wanted to marry her, even with her being so confused and dependant on him.

Chloe looked up and smiled at Jimmy's friend Colin, who was filming her as she posed, her leg up. Her mind spun a little, fleeting thoughts coming to the surface, but she couldn't formulate anything, so she simply smiled and tilted her head to the side. A few lines of symbols drifted in front of her eyes. She wasn't sure what that was.

She would have to ask Jimmy.

When the window opened, she continued to smile at the camera as Colin began to let it drop and the wind from outside whipped through. Chloe only looked back when her name was called.

"Oh! Kara!" she said excitedly, clapping her hands together as she saw the girl by the window wearing a blue tank top and short jean shorts. "I’m so glad you could come. Let me call Lois, and she'll find a seat for you, okay?"

Kara approached her and glared at Colin. "Can you go? We have some girl talk to do."

"Oh, uh, yeah. No problem." Colin held out his knuckle to her. "Ring that bell?"

Kara stared at it for a long moment, then looked up. "I don’t know what this means."

"He wants you to give him a fist bump," Chloe explained. She half-turned and touched her knuckle to Colin's. Colin nodded and looked at Kara expectantly.

With hesitation, Kara raised her hand and lightly touched her fist to his.

"Alright! Get your gab on, girls." Colin left the loft apartment with a sprightly step.

Kara watched him go, then looked over Chloe, who was wearing nothing but a white corset, garter, and sheer dressing robe. She was a stiff mannequin with a plastic smile. "Chloe, I can't let you do this. It's not right."

"Why?" Chloe asked with genuine curiosity. "I've only met you once. How can you know what's right for me?"

"You and I have met before. You just don't-"

"Remember. Oh. I'll… I'll have to ask Jimmy about that. I have a hard time remembering things these days." Her phone went off, and Chloe looked at it with irritation.

"Don't ask Jimmy. Just don't marry him today. Listen to me about this, Chloe. You don't want to regret something like this later," Kara insisted. "When my father wiped my memory, I would have defended almost anything he did. To me he seemed like a good man, but once I got my memories back, I realized he was just controlling me. I was nothing but his doll."

"I don't… I don't know what you're talking about," Chloe said softly, walking backward.

Kara stepped forward and grabbed her arms. "No, you don't. That's the problem. Go to Jimmy and tell him that you need to postpone this until you get your memory back."

"He doesn't mind that my memory is bad," Chloe protested. She felt her heart beating wildly in her chest like some kind of frantic animal. This Kara girl was scaring her. She was stronger than she looked, and something in her eyes was hard and determined.

Kara rolled her eyes. "Oh yeah? He cared when my memory was bad. He didn't even tell me that he was dumping me. He just left."

"Wait, is this because you two dated?" Chloe asked incredulously. "Get your hands off me. I'm not going to postpone my wedding because some crazy ex-girlfriend still wants him."

"Believe me, I do not want him."

Chloe struggled against Kara's iron grip.

"Stop that. Chloe, you have to listen to me. Trust me, I have very little use for men these days."

"Lois!" Chloe yelled. "Lois are you down there! Clark?"

"Oh, for the love of… Sorry." Kara tapped the side of her head, scooped Chloe into her arms, and flew out the window as fast as she could without turning the woman in her arms into jelly.

A minute later Lois came running up the stairs. "Chloe? Hey! Chloe!"

She looked around the room hysterically, turning chairs over and darting into the bathroom. After looking behind the shower curtain, she went back into the main room and looked out the open window, then down, to see if Chloe had fallen.

"Where is she?"

Jimmy came upstairs and frowned. "What's goin' on?"

"Chloe's missing. She was up here a minute ago, and then I heard her scream my name. I ran up here, and she's gone. Disappeared."

"Gone? No. No way." Jimmy ran a hand through his hair. "We… Uh… Call the police. Yeah. Dial 911!"

"The police aren't going to send someone out for a woman who's been missing for less than five minutes. They won't consider it a missing person until she's been gone twenty-four hours," Lois said abrasively. She put her hands on her hips. "Chloe's not street pizza, so she didn't jump. Let's put out a search for her. Put these guests to work."

She clapped her hands together and breezed past Jimmy, who still seemed dumbfounded.

Chloe's cell phone rang again. He ran over to answer it.

"Hey, this is Chloe's phone."

There was a long silence, and then, "So do you always have Chloe's phone, or do you occasionally let her use it?"

"Who is this?" Jimmy asked. The cell went silent, and the man on the other end hung up. With a frown, Jimmy hurried down the stairs after Lois.

***

Chloe woke in a room. It was a plain enough room with one door and blue walls. It was also unfamiliar, but these days, that wasn't saying a whole lot. She touched her head, which felt a little funny, and sat up from the mattress where she'd been laying.

Across the room, cross-legged, sat the blond-haired girl who Chloe had seen before. What was her name?

"Kara?"

Her head turned and the scant light from the window hit the girl's face, highlighting her high cheekbones and the golden sheen of her hair. Chloe thought for a moment that she'd been kidnapped by an angel. Now wasn't that silly? Where had she heard something like that before?

"Chloe?" Kara stood, carrying the dusty pile of paper that had been sitting on the floor with her. She dropped it in front of Chloe. "I've been doing some reading. Maybe something that will jog your memory."

"Kara, you don't have to do this. Please, they'll be looking for me," Chloe pleaded.

"I can't let you go through with something like that when you don't have all your faculties. Maybe they don’t care, but I do. My father erased my memories once, and I told you that, and then my uncle erased them all. I've gotten them back since, but they weren't theirs to throw away or to keep from me. It wasn't fair," Kara tried to explain to her.

Chloe twisted her fingers, then said emphatically, "All I want is to walk down the aisle with the man I-"

"Ugh." Kara sighed heavily and sat Chloe down on the mattress. "How would you like to wake up during your honeymoon with that man and remember something that ruined it? You wouldn't, would you? If Jimmy really and truly loves you for who you are, then he must be hoping that you get your memories back, too, right?"

Chloe looked down at her hands and realized she was still in her corset and garter. "He must."

"Then he would want you to try." Kara tentatively reached over to touch Chloe's hand. It seemed small and dry. Soft, with a small callous on the outside of her index finger and a few paper cuts. Kara smiled, thinking that Chloe's hand was a writer's hand. It was her wedding day, and she'd not thought to put down her pen—or her laptop—long enough to make them perfect for the big day.

"Okay," Chloe agreed. She ought to be afraid. Years in Smallville had taught her that. Still she sighed and put her hands in her lap to wait for whatever plan this crazy, lonely girl had concocted to repair her Swiss cheese memory.

It began when Kara set an old copy of The Smallville Ledger on Chloe's lap. Chloe smiled nostalgically.

"I wrote this. I wrote this article," she whispered proudly. "An insider's view of the case. The cop wanted a promotion, so he kidnapped someone who would be missed pretty quickly. Editor of the school paper. Paper has to be out every week. It was my first article published in a real paper."

Chloe put her chin in her hand. "It's no Bengal Tiger, but I thought it was pretty good. The editor of The Daily Planet at the time thought so too. I got my internship that way."

"It must have been terrifying," Kara said sympathetically. "How did you get away from him?"

"I…" Chloe paused, skimming over the paper before her. "I don't remember. My memory."

She shrugged. Kara put her hand on Chloe's shoulder and pointed to the paper. Chloe continued to read.

"Clark. It was Clark… who saved me." Chloe smiled ear to ear. "He was always so brave."

"Yeah. Clark." Kara tensed her jaw and gave Chloe several copies of The Torch. "And these?"

"That was… Sean Kelvin, Justin Gains, and… Ian Randal. He turned himself in two. The others had powers too. I wrote about them all. I don't remember much more than that."

"Read the rest," Kara urged softly.

She watched sharply as Chloe read through the countless articles she had written for The Torch, as well as the ones she'd written for The Ledger. Kara kept the ones from The Daily Planet aside, and asked a question here or there.

"I… It's like it happened to someone else," Chloe lamented. "How can Jimmy even love me? How can Clark be my friend-"

"Do you remember anything at all?" Kara asked hopefully.

"I don't remember, but… Clark saves a lot of people, doesn't he? In so many stories. How did I never notice the pattern before?"

Kara sat up straight, then she stood and paced, swishing her hips jauntily. "Didn't you?"

"Well, maybe I did. I guess. I just don't remember." Chloe spread her hands and looked up at Kara helplessly. "And I'm cold. Did I mention I'm cold?"

"No. But I can help with that. Hang on." Kara walked toward the door, then stopped and turned around. "While I'm gone, read these."

She picked up the papers from The Daily Planet that had her articles in them and dropped them in Chloe's lap.

"Um, okay." Chloe looked up at Kara and watched the girl go. The moment Kara was gone, she went to the door and tried the handle, but it was locked. She scanned the room for anything that could help her get away, but there was really nothing remotely like a weapon. Kara hadn't bothered to even threaten her with one. Chloe wasn't sure why she hadn't tried to escape before now. She slowly returned to the mattress, sat down, and began looking through the newspapers.

What she came across, it seemed, were more and more articles by herself. Her old self. The one who had written constantly. She had vague memories of some of the articles. Some of them were flat out boring, the assigned articles that every reporter has to take. Those were clear as a picture. Others, ones with more energy and life to them, she couldn't seem to bring up at all. File not found.

Chloe couldn't justify marrying anyone in this state. She hadn't lived over half her life. She was broken.

When Kara returned with a set of pajamas, Chloe had her head in her hands, and she was sobbing so hard that she could barely breathe. Kara rushed to her side and put her arms around Chloe.

"What is it? Did you remember?"

"No! I can't! I can't r-remember. I'm n-nothing," Chloe sobbed.

Kara stared on in shock. This hadn't been what she'd planned. Not at all. "No, you aren't, Chloe. You're something. You're seriously something. You're more something than most people on this planet. Believe me."

"Have you met everyone on this planet?" Chloe asked bitterly.

"No. But I've met people from other planets, and trust me, they're assholes."

Chloe sniffed, not smiling, but looking at her curiously. Kara wiped her tears away.

"You didn't learn anything?" Kara asked with a sigh. "I'm sorry, Chloe. I thought for sure that would jog your memory. Maybe I should go get Lex. He had a-"

"No! Lex Luthor is a bad man. Don't you know that? And anyway, he's probably not even alive. He disappeared last spring," Chloe informed her seriously. "Don't mess with him."

"He disappeared? I didn't know that. I wouldn't worry about him. I can handle Lex." Kara looked around at a loss for what to do. She slid her hands over Chloe's trembling arms. "You're shivering. Wear these."

"Can I take the girlie stuff off first?"

Kara laughed. "Yeah, you can."

"Well, I'm apparently talking to Miss Sweet Corn 2007. I wouldn't want to commit a fashion faux pas in front of my captor," Chloe quipped, slipping off her sheer dressing robe. Why in the world she'd been wearing it at all… She didn't understand why she did a lot of things these days.

"You wrote about that, too. Did you read it? With the Weather Girls?" Kara asked. "Front page- Chloe, you're not my captive. Do you really want go? I just… I can't let you marry a man like this. It isn't right. My father would have done that to me. I bet you anything."

Chloe slipped off her garter and began unfastening the side of her corset. "The wedding's canceled by now…"

"Yeah. It is."

"Could we just tell Clark?" Chloe suggested.

"No, we can't tell Clark. If I… Clark knows about your memory loss," Kara offered. She considered just telling Chloe everything herself, but that wouldn't help Chloe. It wouldn't erase the damage that had been done to her. Not by a long shot.

"Well, obviously. He was there when I was losing my memories. I was at The Talon, and then… I woke up." She shook her head, struggling with the corset. "In my own home. Could you help me with this?"

Kara stood again and moved to her side, slowly and carefully unfastening the side of the corset. "I don't know why you're wearing this. You look fine without whalebone poking your insides. No, Chloe, I mean, he knows why your memory loss happened."

"Jimmy said I ordered the corset… It was a stroke." Chloe half-turned as her corset dropped to the floor and she stood in front of Kara mostly naked. "Wasn't it?"

Kara said nothing. She didn't move, and she didn't speak, but Chloe and that last spark of intelligence that flickered in her green eyes saw the answer. She kicked the corset away and grabbed the light green pajamas.

***

Ever since Jimmy had come into the main room of The Talon, howling about Davis stalking his fiancée, Clark had been searching for the man. It had been officially twenty-four hours since Chloe had gone missing, and while he would like to believe that Chloe was all right, there was a good chance that she had gotten confused and wandered away, or that Davis had come and kidnapped her.

The only problem was that Davis was hard to find, the bastard, and Clark was running out of places to look. He'd looked everywhere he could think of in Smallville, including the castle, Isis, even the Daily Planet, although how she'd end up there with no car and very little recollection of her own daily life, he didn't know.

One thing that had freaked him out completely was to visit Davis' sparse, bizarro apartment. The man was strange from head to toe, no doubt about it. It was pathologically clean. There was very little food in the refrigerator, just some juice and baking soda. Rice and coffee in the cabinet. Several disposable coffee cups in the trashcan.

The man ate less than Lex had. No wonder Davis was so fit.

Worse than that, there was no furniture. Just a television in the living room, which was perfectly clean, and in the bedroom, nothing. No bed. No dresser. No mirrors. There wasn't even a mirror in the bathroom. It, in fact, looked as though it had never been used.

The new man in Chloe's life must have been spending his time elsewhere, because Clark hadn't ever found a place less lived in than this.

He turned for the door and jumped when he saw Davis right behind him.

"Couldn't make it to your own bathroom, Kent?" Davis asked dryly. He moved past Clark and began to wash some blood off of his hand.

"Guess you've had a rough day," Clark commented.

"Give me one good reason not to call the police," Davis shot back, turning his head to Clark angrily.

"Because Chloe disappeared yesterday, and you were calling her non-stop," Clark accused angrily. "If I turn her phone over to the police, they're going to be investigating you pretty closely. I don't think you want that."

Clark wished he could take the surprised look on Davis' face for what it was. Davis turned, stepping back and parting his naturally thin, bowed lips.

"For how long? I was calling her because she wasn't answering, and the last time I met her on the street, she didn't remember anything but me," Davis replied. He touched his hair, then looked toward the doorway. "I don't have her, Clark. I would never take her against her will. Surely you know that. Couldn't I have done it when her memories were shot?"

Crossing his arms, Clark eyed Davis dubiously. He had a point, though. Which made Clark angrier. "She still doesn't have all of her memories. It's… It's been worse than I thought it would be since that day."

"What did you think would happen? She had a serious mental breakdown. Either it was a stroke, or a severe blow to the head. She could even have Huntington's and not know it. There are so many problems she could have, and she should have undergone a medical examination after she got back," Davis continued firmly. "I'm guessing that didn't happen."

"No. Jimmy seemed to think she was fine."

"Jimmy is a tool. If I were Chloe's best friend, I wouldn't sit idly by while a guy who's a-okay with his girlfriend being a halfwit, as long as she's focused on him, tries to bind her to him for life," Davis snapped.

"You're not exactly unbiased, there," Clark replied, raising both of his brows and pointing at him.

"No. No, I'm not!" Davis closed his eyes and smoothed both of his palms over his head. "I'm not. We have to find her, Clark. Even if Jimmy doesn't know how precious and amazing the woman he has is, we have to bring her back."

"For once I agree with you," Clark said softly. He sighed and looked at the impeccably clean shower. "Do you ever bathe in here? I find it hard to believe that you do."

"I shower at work. It saves time." Davis frowned. "Has that been bugging you since you got in here? Did you break my lock? You'd better fix it."

"What's anyone going to steal? That old TV?"

"I like my clothes."

Clark frowned and narrowed his eyes. "You wear the same thing every day. Isn't that boring?"

Davis shrugged. "It means people can identify who you are and what you do. That's important, isn't it?"

***

Chloe woke again on the mattress and looked around sleepily. She'd spent so much time yesterday reading articles that she'd written that she had dreams of being in The Daily Planet, running back and forth from the copier to Grant Gabriel's desk, where he might or might not be boffing her cousin. Every time she warned herself not to look, but every time she rushed in and cringed at the sight.

As she rubbed her eyes, Chloe sat up and smelled pancakes. She stood, looking around for where the bathroom might be. If she weren't a prisoner, then surely the door wouldn't be locked this time. She padded in that direction tentatively and jumped when the door opened.

"Oh! I'm making you breakfast," Kara said seriously. "You haven't eaten since you've been here."

"You cook?"

"I watched the Food Network last year," she said with a nod, as though that should make her an expert. Kara moved the plate under Chloe's nose so she could smell her breakfast.

"Can I? Um." Chloe pointed out of the room. "I need to use the bathroom. On Planet Chloe, we do that sort of thing."

"Oh! Right. Go ahead. It's to the left."

Chloe looked back at Kara, who was setting the plate of pancakes and eggs on the bar in the kitchen and going back to pour the juice. Chloe shrugged, thinking she could run out the front door, which was carelessly open. Nothing between her and the outside world but the screen door.

But she had to pee, so she hustled into the bathroom. As she washed her hands, she checked out her reflection. Her makeup was smudged, and her mascara had run down her face from the crying, and the beautiful job that had been done on her hair had turned into an impressive case of bedhead. Oh well. She wouldn't be walking down the aisle today.

She lowered her head to the sink and began to wash off her face.

Suddenly Kara's voice drifted into the room. She was singing. Soft, sad, and low in a language that Chloe had never heard before.

Chloe came out of the bathroom, expecting Kara to stop singing in embarrassment, but she only looked Chloe in the eye for a moment before she went back to flipping the pancakes.

The girl finished her hymn and sat down on the stool next to her with a much larger plate of food. It must be genetic. Clark ate like that too, and Chloe very rarely saw it show on him.

"What was that song?" Chloe asked cautiously. Sometimes Kara seemed very flippant, but others she seemed very still and profound.

"It's… Well, for a translation, it's a Coluan prayer. You sing it in the morning to give thanks for the days you spent with lost loved ones."

Chloe, for the first time in a long time, felt very certain of something, and that was this girl had lost many, many loved ones.

Kara asked lightly as she cut up her pancakes, "Did you know that Clark's snob girlfriend never made me pancakes? She sneered at me once like I was this other woman when she showed up, and then she sort of ignored me like Clark's bratty little sister or something. I'm not sure if she still thought Clark was attracted to me or not, but every time I was in the room, she turned everything around to be about herself, or about how Clark always needed to be more 'honest' with her. I figured it out, anyway, and I bet mine's better. What do you think?"

"Lana? I didn't know she cooked either," Chloe said. She tossed her hands up in the air and shook her head. "Although with my memory…"

"I don't think she ever cooked for you either. I wish you could tell me what happened to her. I didn't like her much, but I couldn't let Brainiac torture her. No one deserves that." Kara took a piece of bacon. "You could never tell Clark anything about her. If you did, he'd always turn around and start fighting with you."

"That's true," Chloe agreed. "Once when we were in high school, Lana snooped through my computer and she found something that made me so embarrassed. And when Clark found out that we were fighting, he assumed it was my fault. And when he found out what had actually happened? He acted like I had no right to be angry with her for doing it. Just because I've had some problems learning what other people consider as normal boundaries, doesn't mean that Lana shouldn't know them. Everything I did was with good intentions.""

"Hey," Kara whispered, a little smile playing across her lips.

Chloe lowered her head and looked at her curiously. "What?"

"You remembered something. You remembered it clearly." Kara reached forward and touched the tip of Chloe's nose.

Chloe started to grin helplessly. "I did. Oh, wow."

"Tell me more about that. Tell me… What boundary issues did you and Clark have? When did he get mad?" Kara asked.

They spent the rest of the morning exchanging information, mostly about Clark, and although they had a few good laughs at his expense (for which Chloe would try to make it up to him later), unfortunately, there were no intense breakthroughs, just a few fond high school memories.

"It's okay," Kara explained. She held up a finger and went over to the sofa, the one piece of furniture in the whole apartment, and picked up a box sitting on it. "I have a plan."

Chloe sat down next to her patiently, hoping… she didn't know what she hoped. Her eyes drifted to Kara's legs. The girl was wearing jean cut-offs and a white t-shirt. It was certainly warmer here than it was in Smallville.

"Here. This should help." Kara pulled out a palm-sized pentagonal crystal. There was a vertical infinity sign in the middle of it. "Or I hope it does. I've been looking everywhere for it. Clark stole it from me, when there was a huge mess with my father, but I've got it back now. Clark had it under his stupid barn. He keeps all my crystals down there."

"What is it?" Chloe asked. She reached out and let her fingers trail over the edges.

"It's a Kryptonian crystal."

"What… What does that mean? Kryptonian?" Chloe frowned and looked up at Kara seriously. It sounded… important. And foreign.

"The Kryptonian race was much more advanced than the human race. They recorded all of their knowledge inside of these crystals," Kara told her, looking a bit hesitant. "There's more I could tell you, but I'm afraid that if I do this wrong, you won't remember at all."

"What can you do with that crystal?" Chloe asked. "Don't you need something to plug it into? A computer interface?"

Kara shook her head slowly. "No. Our interface is our brain."

"So… Shove it in my ear?"

"No. Just… Here." Kara arranged the crystal in her palm and held it up to Chloe's chin. "Close your eyes and concentrate. Reach out and pick up the information."

Chloe did as she was told and closed her eyes, concentrating hard. At first she tried to focus on some kind of strand of information. Then she let her mind drift. After about five minutes, she opened one eye.

"What am I doing wrong here?"

"I don’t know. Just reach out and grab the interface. You did it before with Clark's crystal," Kara said impatiently. "It can fix you."

"Um. I don't remember that." Chloe opened the other eye and sighed.

Kara raised the crystal and pressed it to Chloe's forehead. "Maybe it's broken."

"Uh…"

Then Kara held it in front of her and closed her eyes. The crystal began to glow, and translucent screen appeared in front of Kara's face with little lines of odd shapes.

"Oh my God!" Chloe exclaimed, scooting backwards on the sofa.

"Reading. I don't know why it doesn't work for you. Maybe you just forgot how when Clark erased-" Kara opened her eyes and set the crystal aside. "Chloe, it's okay."

"I've never seen anything like that!" Chloe stayed where she was, frozen for a moment, then grinned widely. "That was smokin' cool!"

Kara smiled. "I'm sorry it didn't work. I don't know what to do now."

Chloe looked down for a moment, then reached over and touched Kara's hand. It was larger than her own, rougher. Now Chloe knew that this girl had seen hard times, no matter how cavalier she occasionally seemed to be.

"Let's give it some time. We'll think of something," Chloe suggested.

Kara squeezed her hand and nodded dejectedly.

***

"You could stop staring at my rack, Jimbo. Any time now," Lois told Jimmy abrasively. She ran her hand over the side of her mussed hair and pulled at her ponytail a little. The last 48 hours or so had turned up nothing in their search for Chloe, other than the fact that a paramedic was stalking her little cousin and Clark was absolutely useless.

He had, however, managed to get the police looking for Chloe sooner than Lois had expected, so all wasn't lost.

"Sorry." Jimmy sat up and shook his head like a dog before pushing himself to his feet. "Want some breakfast? I make a mean Wholesome Olsen!"

"Stop that."

"Stop what?" Jimmy turned around, looking affronted.

"That 'I'm such a good guy' thing. It's obnoxious. Why do you name things after yourself? Do you spend all day in a fantasy world or something?" Lois griped, getting up herself and walking again to the window that had been left open when Chloe had disappeared. "Jimmy Olsen: Everyone's pal!"

"Well, excuse me if I'm nice to people," Jimmy replied sarcastically.

"You just want everyone to like you."

"You completely meant everything you said at the engagement party, didn't you?"

"What was your first clue?"

Jimmy stepped forward and pointed at her. "You know, you aren't a bowl of cherries to be around either. I mean, ripe and soft, maybe, but the personality's the pits."

"Stop making up stupid puns!" Lois shouted, turning around swiftly. "And I don't care of people don't like me, Olsen. I'm awesome."

She crossed her arms and glared at him. Jimmy mimicked her stance, but only held it for a moment. Then his eyes drifted downward.

"Stop. Staring. At my tits."

"How can I help it when they're right out there?"

"Maybe you could help it by remembering someone. Say, your fiancée? The poor girl who's been kidnapped on her wedding day? The same girl you let wander around with half her memory without telling me!"

"You'd just get upset."

"Well, duh." Lois rolled her eyes and followed Jimmy into the kitchen.

"You aren't fooling anyone with that attitude, Ms. I'm Awesome," Jimmy said as he opened the refrigerator and pulled out the eggs.

"Whatever." Lois looked around the place and sighed.

"I know you rip your articles off the interns. And Mercer only gives you raises because she likes to stare at your a-"

"Ah ah!" Lois swiveled around and pointed at him. "Shut it. How do you know how I got my raise? Huh?"

"I know how you got hired." Jimmy shook his head. "Everyone at the DP knows how you got hired, and everyone heard your 'interview' with Luthor in Grant's old office. And here I am trying to get out the shadow of the 'star' of The Daily Planet. I should go get on my knees for Mercer. It might do me some good."

"Oh, shut up." Lois walked over and leaned on the counter. "You offered. She just didn't want you."

Jimmy looked up with big eyes. "How'd you know that?"

Lois laughed and shook her head.

"It's not my fault she likes the baldies," Jimmy replied with a bit of a pout.

"I knew you were still cheating on her. You're not marrying my cousin." Lois stole a slice of cut fruit and sucked on it.

"Right now I don't think anyone's going to marry her, if we don't find her. I admit, my journalistic instincts aren't always great, but something big's been going on lately."

"With the Blur?"

"With the Blur, but that's not just it. There was Dark Thursday, remember? And then there was this woman who was beyond meteor freak." Jimmy set himself to whisking the egg whites. "Then the dam breaks for no reason, there's a sudden and unpredicted eclipse, the government is sniffing around everywhere, some cult is leaving secret messages cut up in Luthor's chest, and now there's this weirdzo serial killer and Chloe's memory just blanks out."

"What do you think's going on? The Apocalypse?" Lois asked as she chewed. Jimmy was staring at her cleavage again, but she didn't want to stop the conversation, and besides, if stupid farmboy Clark wasn't going to stare at it, it might as well not go to waste.

"Apocalypse? Must be Tuesday. I dunno. I thought Luthor was behind it at the time, but that was about two years ago and he's gone missing. I think he got on the wrong side of all this stuff."

"Could be. He's always into something. You can never pin anything on him." Lois pushed herself up to sit on the counter.

"It's got to do with those caves. I know it does. The cult had these drawings down there, and they depicted this battle huge between good and evil," Jimmy told her, getting excited.

"I know." Lois creased her brow. "Wait. Are you talking about that Nana and Ziggy drawing? That's not a battle. Well. The general always used to say that marriage is the only war where you get to sleep with the enemy."

Jimmy stared at her in confusion. "What are you talking about?"

"We're talking about the cave paintings, right? With the snake thing and the guy all wrapped up together?"

"Yeah, that's exactly it. The symbols from the cave match-"

"Look, Jimmy, take my word for it. I may not be the expert in all forms of combat, but I've seen enough to know that if two people are all intertwined like that, they aren't fighting," she informed him with a smirk.

Jimmy stared at her dumbly, trying to figure out what she meant and why she was laughing at him. "Wait…"

"Ask Colin to explain it to you."

***

"I should call home." Chloe looked over at Kara. The two of them were laying on the beach, sharing a blanket, both in swimsuits that Kara had gotten for them. Chloe moved a hand over her bare mid-drift self-consciously.

"I don't think that would be a good idea," Kara replied.

"I should tell them where I am. Tell Jimmy that I'm okay, and that we're postponing the wedding…"

Kara reached over and wrapped her fingers over Chloe's hand. She felt the rise and fall of Chloe's stomach as the woman breathed, and she listened to her heartbeat.

"Kara?"

"Yes, Chloe."

"What if I can't remember?"

Kara sighed. "Then I suppose you marry Jimmy and move on with your life without it."

"How am I supposed to do that, if I don't even know who I am?" Chloe asked, tenting her brows fretfully.

"If it makes you feel any better, you seem a lot more like yourself. Still not as strong as you were-"

"I was strong?" Chloe's lips curved slightly. "Could I lift cars? Stop speeding trains with my bare hands?"

"Not strong like that." Kara shook her head. "You had this inner strength born of having to fight for everything you wanted. Of… I'm not sure what else. But there were things that happened to you. Fire that tempered the steel. I don't think I would have understood myself what that meant, not until after I spent that time lost in the… Wilderness."

Chloe frowned. "Wilderness? Spend a few years on an island?"

"Not exactly. Where I was… Time passes strangely. You don't age, but time passes so quickly. I was gone for a little less than a year, here. But where I was? It was so much longer. We tried to count the days, or I did. She told me that there was no use. Time flies. Zoners kill. And once you're alone, it's even worse than it was before."

The corners of Chloe's eyes creased, and she blinked a little, rolling on her side to move closer to Kara.

"Hey. Whatever happened, it's over now. You don't have to live there anymore," Chloe said softly.

"Part of me will always live there," Kara replied darkly. She looked up at the sky.

Kara's story didn't make any sense, but it sounded so true. Chloe watched the young woman's despondent face as she looked up at the sky. The sunny day seemed no match for the pain coming off of this lonely, beautiful stranger. Kara had obviously tried hard to mask it, to push it aside in her quest to save Chloe from whatever Kara thought she needed saving from. Maybe from Jimmy, maybe from herself.

Chloe slipped her small fingers through Kara's and squeezed, pushing their hands up into the air together.

"How about, you be my Memento and I'll be your Leaving Las Vegas?"

Kara looked at her, wrinkling her nose in confusion. "I don't know what that means."

"You help me remember." Chloe wrote the word memory across Kara's naked thigh. "I help you forget. Only no dying."

"No dying," Kara agreed.

Kara let go of Chloe's hand and moved it against the soft skin of her waist. Their foreheads pressed together and slowly their lips met.

Think of me as the black sheep of my family, dedicated to doing good to make up for my ancestor's legacy of evil.

My decisions are based on pure logic. Pure intellect, not emotion.

I alone am… alone… I am…

Chloe pulled back and looked at Kara in surprise.

"I’m sorry, Chloe. I…" Kara sat up on the blanket and pushed her lower lip out. "I know you're with Jimmy-"

"That was… I just remembered something. And I don't think it was my memory," Chloe whispered in a small, terrified voice.




Part Two

"You really like coffee."

Chloe looked up from her laptop at Clark's little cousin. "It's been my life's blood for years. Long nights on investigation, deadlines, papers due the next morning… That sort of thing."

Kara set the coffee down in front of Chloe. "What kind of papers?"

"I… Oh, I mean essays. For school." Chloe wrapped her fingers around her mug, smiling softly at the whipped cream on top of her drink. This wasn't what she'd ordered. Not even close. She licked the top of the whipped cream.

"You work hard," Kara commented, then nodded to the laptop as she sat down. "Do you have a 'paper' due? Or is this for the Planet?"

"One and then the other. I'll probably be heading upstairs before long."

"You don't have to."

"Well, you close at nine, don't you?"

"You live upstairs. It's not like we could lock you out."

Chloe ran her finger along the side of her cup.

"Why isn't Jimmy here with you?" Kara asked.

Chloe tensed her lips a little. "I needed some… space. He's been kind of…"

Kara leaned chin on her hand and watched Chloe's face.

"He has his eyes on other girls." Chloe shrugged.

"Oh, so you dumped him?"

"No!" Chloe looked up expecting to see a scheming look on Kara's face, but there was only genuine curiosity.

"Doesn't it bother you? It bothers everyone on TV."

"Yeah, well, relationships don't work like they do on TV. Everything can't be perfect." Chloe looked out the window. "Sometimes guys look at other girls. Sometimes they… don't plan you into their life. You just have to realize that jealousy doesn't help anything, and people don't change. Not for relationships they don't."

"That's not very romantic." Kara sighed. "Roaming Eyes Olsen, huh? I'm sorry about that."

"Well, it's not just that. I have some things going on right now, and I can't talk to him about it, so it's best if we're not around each other." Chloe shook her head. "He really can't stand it when I keep things from him."

"That sounds like you're dating Lana."

Chloe looked at Kara with wide eyes, then burst into giggles. Kara quickly followed suit.

With a slow blink, Chloe looked up from her coffee. Kara was sitting on the beach, hair blowing, and staring into the ocean so intently that Chloe figured there must be some answers there. She stood from where she had been sitting and pushed a hand through her hair.

The little fragment of her life that had just flashed before her eyes wasn't particularly reassuring. In fact, if anything, it made her doubt her life even more, and that was saying something, lately. She hadn't remembered before that she and Jimmy had been having problems. What was it that she hadn't been able to tell him?

The sand pressed soft between her bare toes as she approached Kara, and the girl didn't look up. Kara knew Chloe was there, however. Sensed her somehow. The way her slender shoulders relaxed every so slightly told Chloe that she had been detected.

"I'm back," she announced unnecessarily.

"Yes."

Chloe lowered herself onto their blanket and looked at Kara's brooding face.

"A memory for a memory," Chloe offered.

Kara's head turned sharply. "You remembered something."

"Yeah, you and me having coffee… You used to work at the Talon. And… I was telling you about some problems with Jimmy." Chloe sipped her coffee and looked down at the sand.

"Last year was rough."

"Did you… Did you date him before or after that?" Chloe asked.

Kara pulled her knees up. "We hardly dated. He was nice, and I was lonely, and you told me that you didn't mind if we were friends."

"I'm not accusing you of anything, Kara," Chloe told her, placing a light hand on Kara's bare shoulder. "I learned a long time ago that you can't blame other women for things guys do."

"It was after. He dumped you for…" Kara rolled her shoulders.

"For what I couldn't tell him?" Chloe asked, watching Kara's eyes. "What was that?"

"I can't tell you."

"Please, Kara. I need to know."

"This is really more along the lines of I don't know. " Kara tilted her head. "Not details anyway."

Chloe sucked in her lower lips lightly. "Then tell me what you do know."

"You… You had some kind of power. And Jimmy is really, really anti-people with powers. Or he was when we were not-dating." Kara tensed the corners of her mouth. "I mean, he was so much that you tried to get a doctor to lobotomize you to make your power go away."

"No." Chloe shook her head, paling. "I have an ability? I can't." She set her coffee down and pinched her index and middle fingers. "I don't think I would have gone for surgery just because of Jimmy. I would have- I've been afraid of losing my mind since I was sixteen. I would have gone for the surgery because I can't be a killer, Kara. I’m more afraid of losing myself than anything."

"You won't be. I'll make sure you don't do anything you regret," Kara promised.

"Can you?" Chloe asked, feeling her heart speed up. "How could you? Meteor freaks can be dangerous, Kara. Please don't put yourself in danger for me. I don't…" Chloe shook her head agitatedly as she spoke. "I don't want to be dangerous."

Kara's long fingers trailed over the side of Chloe's face. "I'm stronger than I look. And I can do what I claim."

Then consider me your own personal bomb squad.

Chloe blinked and pulled away a little. Who had promised that? These little flashes of memory weren't doing much to clarify matters. Kara pulled back as well and tucked her legs against her chest.

"Sorry."

"So, your turn," Chloe said quietly.

"My turn to…?"

"Quid pro quo. I gave you a memory." Chloe tucked her legs underneath her. "What do you remember? From your Wilderness?"

Kara met her hopeful eyes with a despondent stare before looking back out at the ocean. "It's complicated. Anyway, aren't I supposed to be forgetting?"

Chloe pressed her lips together and nodded. She picked her coffee back up and stared at it. After a long moment, Kara spoke again in a deep, distant voice that seemed alienated from her misleading delicate appearance.

"Her name was Talia, and she saved me. When I arrived in… It's called the Phantom Zone. The Zone. It's sort of like an island prison, and one of my family's enemies dropped me in there to keep me out of the way. It's a harsh, barren desert. If you don't toughen up, you'll die." Kara pressed her eyes against the palm of her hand. "They killed her. The Zoners, and it was my fault. I got sloppy. I was weak. And they killed her. She was all I had, and she took me in and tried to protect me. I repaid her by stealing her life."

"Hey! No. Kara, it isn't your fault. Blame the ones who killed her, not yourself," Chloe argued, leaning closer to her.

"I loved her. I don't think I've really ever felt that way about anyone before."

"Was this before we met?" Chloe frowned.

"No. It was after. It was… It doesn't matter. It was years ago."

Chloe straightened up. "How… Kara, I only met you last year."

"Time is different there. I told you," Kara replied irritably. She curled over and pressed both palms against her eyes as she groaned. "I don't want to talk about this. We're here for you, not for me."

"I'm okay with sharing my time here." Chloe looked up as Kara stood abruptly and started walking down the beach. She jumped up to follow Kara, having to run a little to keep up with the tall girl. "Wait! Please, we don't have to talk about this. It's just… Kara, you're hurting. How can I sit here and watch, and just do nothing?"

Kara stopped, causing Chloe to almost fall on the sand. Kara caught her arms and looked at Chloe seriously. "I don't need to be saved."

"Sometimes even heroes need to be saved. You don't have to talk, Kara." Chloe took a deep breath. "I just… I don't know why I trust you. But I do. I feel like… There was something… Was there?"

"I don't know what you mean," Kara whispered. "We knew each other before he took me away. You tried to protect me, gave me an identity here, gave me some fashion tips that didn't quite stick..."

"Then maybe it's something I never said," Chloe mused. When Kara's hands dropped to her sides, Chloe grabbed one of Kara's hands. "Walk with me?"

"We should be getting back to the house. Try to pry out those memories some more," Kara suggested.

"Not now. Let's just walk a little."

Kara waited a moment, then nodded, taking Chloe to her side and moving with her across the beach. A few moments later, her arm slipped around Chloe's shoulders.

***

Clark crossed his arms and sighed in frustration as he and Davis Bloom mulled about Isis and waited for the computer network that Chloe had set up to pop up something useful.

"It would be nice if we had Chloe here to help us find Chloe. I can barely find my way around the computer at work," Davis muttered. "How does she navigate this thing?"

Clark shook his head. He had an idea, but he didn't particularly want to share. "She's been a hacker a long as I've known her."

"I didn't know that," Davis murmured.

"You don't know much about her," Clark replied. He looked at his cell phone, hoping that someone would message him.

"I know as much as I need to. Clark, I'm not the enemy here. I didn't abduct her. I haven't hurt her, and I would never do so," Davis told Clark sternly. "Furthermore, you have absolutely no proof of wrongdoing on my part. Save your judge and jury act for another time."

Clark pressed his lips together in dissatisfaction. This wasn't like that. Something about Davis just felt… wrong. It made Clark feel funny. Although Clark admitted he wasn't always the best judge of character in general, boys interested in Chloe tended to turn out to be psychos.

Davis rolled his eyes and looked up at the screen. "Hey. Pause it. Can we do that?"

"What?" Clark looked up, moved toward the central computer, and took over the keyboard. "Did you spot her?"

"No. But… go back a few frames." Davis pointed to one of the screens, his eyes rounding and his jaw lowering. "There. Did you see that? It's a girl. She's flying."

"Ohhh, no." Clark closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose.

"What? Can you get a close up?" Davis leaned forward, squinting as he studied the frozen image.

"I don't need a close up. There's only one girl who goes around in red and blue belly shirts."

Davis gave Clark a hard look. "I'm sure there are plenty of girls who go around in belly shirts. The question is: How many of them can fly? And secondarily, is she dangerous?"

"No. Well… No. She's not. She was just adamant about not letting Chloe get married while her memory was still impaired."

"I can't say I disagree with that line of reasoning," Davis stated in a flat tone.

"I'm shocked to hear that from you," Clark replied sarcastically.

Davis pursed his lips and watched the screen in frustration. "How do we find them?"

"I… Don't really know. She could be anywhere." Clark sighed and frowned thoughtfully, crossing his arms. "She could have taken Chloe to some other planet."

Davis raised his brows with concern. "She wouldn't, would she? Where would she get the oxygen?"

"She doesn't need oxygen," Clark said offhandedly.

"Um, I get that women really aren't your specialty, but I assure you that Chloe very much needs oxygen."

"Oh, well, that's true…" Clark thought for another moment, then turned his head to Davis. "What do you mean, women aren't my specialty?"

"Well. Obviously," Davis replied after a moment. "Come on."

"Come on, what? I was almost engaged last year," Clark protested.

Davis narrowed his eyes and took a long pause before answering. "To a woman?"

"Yes to a woman!" Clark blanched.

Davis held up his hands. "Not that there's anything wrong with that. No need to be offended. You just don't seem like the kind of guy who's… made for women."

"Well, I'm very much made for women." Clark walked over to grab his blue jacket.

"I suppose you're right. Most gay guys I know have a more varied wardrobe. I don't know how you can complain about mine being repetitive."

Clark shot a scathing look over his shoulder. "I like red."

"And blue?" Davis replied in a catty voice. "I could tell. It must feel like drag when you suit up for work."

"Where do you come from?" Clark demanded. "Why don't you stick around here and speculate on who's gay a little more? I'm going to go visit someone who can help."

"Green Arrow?" Davis called as Clark headed for the door.

Clark froze. "What makes you think that?"

"Well, the red. And the blue. The green bean with a codpiece. Seems like people of like interests… and tights, probably know each other," Davis teased.

Clark's eyes widened. He turned to face Davis very slowly.

"Don't worry, Clark. I won't out you. We all have our secrets, right?" Davis raised a brow and cocked his head to the side.

"How did you read me so fast?"

"I'm… observant. And also not technically retarded, which I would have to say is probably the only reason, besides outright denial, that anyone wouldn't spend any time around you without figuring it out." Davis closed the distance between them and clapped Clark's shoulder. "Relax. Do you think Codpiece can track them down?"

"If he's... sober, yeah." Clark jerked his head to the screens. "We could do it on this thing, but I'm really not familiar with the interface. It would probably just be faster to have Green Arrow have one of his people check out the satellites."

"It's a plan." Davis pulled out his cell phone. "I'll call my partner and tell him I'm going to be late."

"You know, I've never even seen your partner," Clark commented, following Davis out of the office.

***

Eyes stinging and hands shaking, Chloe looked up from the knife in her hands. She was chopping vegetables for dinner. She was no cook, but Kara seemed a decent chef. Right now though, her culinary efforts were being pushed aside by a more immediate need. Her vision blurred as the memory became clearer and clearer.

"I guess he's my boyfriend." Kara stared at her iPod in confusion.

"Wait. Lex?" Chloe set her coffee down and sat next to Kara quickly. "Lex is not your boyfriend just because he helped you out in Detroit."

"What? No. Lex is gay." Kara rolled her eyes.

Chloe laughed in disbelief. "Uh, yeah, sure he is."

"It's like he wants to be my daddy, more than my boyfriend. I was talking about Jimmy." Kara shrugged. "I don't feel anything. Is that wrong? If we were so in love, wouldn't I feel something?"

Chloe rubbed Kara's back sighed softly. It was hard to watch her have such a difficult time with this, and Chloe was spent from arguing with Clark that they needed to give Kara more information about who she was. How could she defend herself from Lex if she didn't know what she was defending? "I don't know what you were feeling. I know you guys seemed to have a lot of fun together."

"Now we stare at each other. He shows me things I'm supposed to like. He speaks words. I stare." Kara looked up at the apartment. "Have I been up here before?"

"Once or twice. I helped you chose a few outfits that were appropriate for work," Chloe offered. "And once, a red dress."

Kara's shoulders slumped. "I not even a person right now. I'm a cucumber."

"You are not a cucumber, okay?" Chloe shook her head and rested her hand on Kara's opposite shoulder. "You're missing some memories. You'll get better, and it'll be fine. You'll… You'll get back together with Jimmy. You'll get back to your life."

"And will I have a life to get back to?"

Chloe stood and walked over to her kitchen, where the teakettle was whistling. "Kara, you're strong. If you don't get your old life back, you'll get a better one. I don't think you were that attached to this life anyway. I mean, you only got here a few months ago."

"You think so? Well, I don't relate to whoever that is in my records, anyway."

Kara looked up as Chloe pressed a cup of tea into her hands. Their eyes met, and Chloe took in a deep breath because her heart was pounding, almost as though she were frightened. And maybe she was. Whatever had touched her insides just then was both exhilarating and terrifying.

"Chloe?" Kara's hands covered hers, and the girl gently took the knife from Chloe.

Chloe's bright eyes met Kara's. "I… I remembered something else."

"Something bad?" Kara frowned slightly. Her hands rested on Chloe's small shoulders.

"No. Well, maybe it makes me a bad person. I don't know why I got back together with Jimmy, or why I'd agree to marry him, when…"

"When?" Kara prompted after a moment.

"I had feelings for someone else," Chloe whispered, looking up at Kara guiltily.

"Oh." Kara let her hands drop.

Chloe looked at the pearly gray-marbled tiles of the kitchen floor and wiped the tears from her cheek. "When you lost your memory-"

"You tried to help me. Clark didn't want you to tell me anything, but you were there for me anyway, Chloe," Kara admitted fervently. "How could I not do the same for you?"

"No, Kara, let me… finish. When you lost your memory-" Chloe took a breath. "I… I realized that you make me feel… Well, it's what I've been realizing since we came here. Going down that aisle with Jimmy, being his wife? That's not what I want. That's someone else's life."

"That's what I was afraid of," Kara said, relief lacing her voice. "That you'd realize that too late."

"How late is too late?" Chloe reached up and touched Kara's cheek gently.

Kara took the back of Chloe's hand and nuzzled her cheek against it. "I think it's too late if you're no longer living."

***

"I'm busy, Clark."

"Are you really going to tell me that you're too busy to have one of your employees look for Chloe on one of Queen Industries' satellites?" Clark asked in frustration.

Oliver flashed him a tight and insincere smile. "Not all of us have the luxury of ignoring the rest of the world while evil men operate unchallenged."

"Wow." Davis shook his head. "That's amazing. Really, it's a skill I wish I had. Being able to convey passive aggression at the same time I'm being smugly superior."

Oliver narrowed his eyes and walked over to the bar on his plane. "Who is this?"

"One of Chloe's friends," Clark said shortly. "Oliver, I can't believe you're not going to help us. Chloe's done a lot for you. A lot of illegal things for you that put her job in jeopardy and got her under Lex's radar."

"You think she wasn't already under Lex's radar? She's a meteor freak and your best friend," Oliver replied, cocking his head to the side sassily.

"Then why did he never fire her or have her taken away before you had her hacking his business from The Daily Planet?" Clark challenged. He crossed his arms.

"You might want to ask the blushing groom about that one," Oliver shot back. "Anyway, I'm on my way out, if you don't mind. Remember, I have a bald rat to catch."

"Clark, let's go. We can find her without this guy," Davis said. He turned to Clark. "Chloe has plenty of mutant friends. Let's go back to her office. I remember one of them could locate other people with metahuman powers, and if we can give that person a call, maybe we can just have them pinpoint Chloe for us."

"How would you know that?" Oliver asked, drawing closer to them with a drink in his hand.

"It's called Meteor Freaks Anonymous, Ollie," Davis replied flippantly. "It's a strictly "Don't Ask; Don't Tell" situation, and since you're pretty much a normie, I don't think anyone wants you to see the list. So sorry."

"If I wanted that list, I'd have it," Oliver snapped.

In response, Davis arched a brow and turned to leave the plane. Clark caught the look of rage on Oliver's face and moved between them.

"Relax. You don't even know the guy," Clark said, holding his hands up. "What difference does it make if he has attitude toward non-mutants?"

"I'm not interested in excuses for your new boyfriend, Clark. Why are you wasting time with him instead of hunting Lex down with me? He's dangerous, and he knows your secret. He has to be stopped-"

"I don't like where this is headed," Clark said in an even tone. He clapped his hand on Oliver's shoulder. "Oliver, you're my friend, and as your friend, I'm telling you to back off on this one. You don't have the perspective to handle Lex if you met him."

"Just because you're afraid to do what's necessary-"

"You sound like you're high," Clark replied bluntly. "You sound like you sounded when you were on that superpowered rage juice, and I don't like it. Are you taking?"

"What?" Oliver shook his head and pulled away. "I'm fine. You're the one hiding from everything. From Lex, from this situation with Chloe-"

"By finding her?"

"By pretending her powers aren't a problem! By acting like it's just fine that she has an alien in her head!"

"What is your problem?" Clark exploded. "Why is it that every time something alien comes up, you freak out? Lex was better about aliens than you are."

"Shut the hell up, Kent. Get out." Oliver spun around and dropped onto the sofa. He too a moody sip of his drink. "Well?"

"Fine." Clark moved to the doorway, then zipped out of the plane to Davis' apartment, and back, where he dropped a sleeping pill in Oliver's alcohol before returning to his original position.

Oliver wouldn't be doing any hunting today.

***

That night, Chloe felt two strong arms wrap around her. One adventurous hand cupped her breasts. She could have moved away, but she didn't. She didn't.

Instead she let her fingers slip through the silky blond hair that spilled onto the pillow they were sharing, and she closed her eyes, moving her face towards her strong protector.

The girl sits in a cold, dark room. He is there. Smirking. Smug. In control. He holds his hand up and watches the girl with the round cheeks and long, blond hair. Her eyes are the sea, uneven waves that come, go, advance, recede. Sweet soft green that demand answers, rebel, plead, submit.

Lately, they submit. This pleases him.

His presence seems to fill the room. The girl feels as though she can't breathe.

He is going to eat her mind.

"No!" Chloe shot up, frightened and flailing her arms as she struggled to free herself. Her hand hit something hard and it smarted, but she couldn't stop fighting.

"Oh, hey! Wait!" The strong arms tried to hold her still for a moment, but when she couldn't calm, they let her go, and Chloe bolted across the room, crossing her arms over herself and bursting into tears.

There was a profound silence for several moments before she heard Kara's voice whisper in the dark, "I'm sorry, Chloe."

"I don't think I can win this," Chloe said, wiping her cheek.

Kara stood slowly. "I'm sorry I scared you. Win what?"

"Anything. I…" Chloe lowered her head into her hand and closed her eyes.

"I am so far from perfect."

"Which is perfect for me," Chloe whispered, watching the lines of code float in front of her eyes as she cupped Jimmy's face and smiled beatifically.

Chloe shook her head as Kara rubbed her back gently. Blood was pounding in her ears.

"Chloe, there's something you need to know," Clark said in an uncomfortable voice. Chloe was changing out of the gray prisoner jumpsuit, but looked over her shoulder as he spoke again. "About Jimmy."

"He betrayed me," Chloe muttered in astonishment.

"Who?" Kara was behind her now, rubbing her back gently.

"Jimmy. He… He tried to turn me in to the Feds, and then he cut a deal with Lex Luthor that got me put in this horrible place…"

"Chloe-"

"No!" Chloe snapped her head around to look at Kara. "He… I can't believe I ever agreed to marry him. He betrayed me. He cheated on me. What possessed me?"

"Well." Kara swallowed and combed her fingers through Chloe's curling and sleep-mussed hair. "Brainiac."

Chloe closed her eyes as the image of a metallic tendril shot forward at her. "God."

"I know. I'm so-"

"Stop saying you're sorry. None of this is your fault." Chloe turned in Kara's arms and embraced her. Kara seemed surprised, but enveloped Chloe in her arms anyway. The smaller woman shook her head. "I wanted to save you, Kara. The last time I saw him, Brainiac had taken your place. I thought someone had slipped you some Red K, or something. And when I went to confront him…"

"He attacked you." Kara pulled back and cupped Chloe's cheek in her hand. "Clark said they got him out. He and Jor-El. Do you remember Jor-El?"

"I remember…"

Cold. Freezing. Kara wandered around in amazement and confusion like an unattended kindergartener.

"I love your son!" Chloe cried, projecting her voice as loudly as she could into the frozen fortress at an even colder AI.

"I remember Jor-El," Chloe replied tersely. "He didn't do a very good job. I think… Brainiac is still here. I was in danger of more than a bad marriage; I was in danger of losing my self completely, becoming the soulless doll to an unfeeling creature."

Kara's eyes grew wide, and she frowned, then looked behind her frantically. "Maybe… I don't know. Maybe we can use my crystal to get him out?"

"It didn't work before."

"Well, I didn't know why you couldn't remember before. If it's because of Brainiac…" Kara let her hand trail down Chloe's arm as she tried to think of a plan to save her.

Chloe shook her head. "He's waiting."

"Waiting? On what?" Kara stopped and focused her attention back on Chloe, who seemed much more stern now, much more serious than she had been.

"On me. To give up."

"Chloe, you can't. He'll destroy you!"

"No." Chloe crossed her arms and padded across the room they had been sharing. "I can't. Because he'll destroy a lot of people. I don't know what his plan is, and he probably has a back up copy somewhere, but I refused to be a monster even as a meteor freak, and I won't be a monster now."

She swallowed and looked out over the ocean view. Her fingers touched the glass.

"You need to kill me, Kara."

"No!" Kara exclaimed immediately. "I'm not going to let him win. You won't either."

Chloe let her forehead hit the glass. "Last time he won. And Clark and Jor-El hit the pause button on what was happening, but he won. He erased all of my memories, and replaced them with Kryptonian coding-"

"He was replicating himself."

"Well, he did replicate himself. Kara, he blocked me out. Jor-El shouldn't have kept my other memories from me, but I wouldn't have any at all if he hadn't intervened. Brainiac would be enacting whatever crazy plan of his by now."

Kara's hands covered Chloe's shoulders, and the girl frowned helplessly. She wanted to wrap Chloe up in a blanket and take her to a far away safe place, but all the places that she knew of were no more. There was just this little house here, and she didn't even really own it. Her lips pressed against the back of Chloe's neck slowly as Chloe let out a soft sob.

Neither of them knew what to do.

***

Clark had never called in a favor from his grandfather in his life, but when Tabby pressed her finger to the map on the screen and looked up knowingly with her wide, chocolate brown eyes, he seriously considered it.

"Are you sure?" Davis asked, sitting in the chair next to her.

"It's screaming out to me. Her powers must be working overtime." Tabby shook her head and pulled up the street map of the city. "Funny. Didn't she say in one of the sessions that her powers were broken?"

"I remember that," Davis replied, frowning deeply.

Clark watched him and thought, momentarily, that Davis' lips were almost naturally pouty, like Lex's were. He rubbed his forehead, wondering where that thought had come from. Davis had just admitted to sitting in on a session, and Chloe did not let anyone in on sessions who weren't 'special' themselves.

"What do you think, Kent? Not bad for a couple of useless guys," Davis joked. "Sometimes I wonder if I have any useable skills at all."

"Well, I can think of a use for you," Tabby replied.

Davis's head shook in a broad back and forth motion. "No legal use."

"Oh, come on. Pay one guy to demolish a building? That's efficiency that can't be beat!" Tabby laughed. She moved her slender fingers over the mouse and wrinkled her brow lightly. Then she nodded and pointed. "They're right here, right now."

Clark lifted his chin and drew closer. "That's right along the coast. What are they doing in Coast City?"

"Honeymoon?" Tabby suggested.

"She's marrying Jimmy, not Kara," Clark said in exasperation.

The woman shrugged and adjusted her purple shawl. "Well, if she changed her mind, Coast City wouldn't be a bad place to go."

"The question is: How are we going to get there before they move again?" Davis looked up at Clark as he spoke.

"Should you fly?" Tabby asked.

"Should I? Can I? We don't have time for a road trip," Davis said pointedly.

"No offense, but… Now that we've found her, maybe I can just go get her. She's my best friend." Clark pretended not to see the wounded look on Davis' face.

"That still doesn't solve the getting there problem," Davis sulked, looking back at the screen to avoid Clark's eyes.

The three of them turned their heads to the sound of heavy heels. "Well, I might have the solution to that," a stern woman's voice answered.

Clark raised his brow. Black Canary was in her full costume, fishnets, high-heeled boots and all, and she was swinging a set of keys from her hand.

"So which one of you drugged Green Arrow?" she asked with a smirk. "I hear Watchtower is in trouble."

"Oh, thank… whoever." Clark walked over to her. "I don't know if she's… My cousin kidnapped her, and her memory has been-"

"Shit. I know. Frankly, we need her more than we've had her—I can hardly check my email, let alone follow electronic paper trails—and we've been losing her bit-by-bit since she got back from Black Creek. It's like another person was there trying to live her life." Dinah sighed and clasped the keys in her hand. "I want to come. Will there be room?"

Davis stood and looked her over curiously. "I don't know this one."

Dinah returned the sweeping look and twisted her lips in appreciation. "Nice. I'm Black Canary. I spend a lot of time in Gotham. And you are?"

"Davis Bloom." He offered her his hand and shook it firmly.

Dinah sucked the inside of her cheek for a moment thoughtfully, then nodded. "You're coming?"

"I want to, but I don't know how useful I'll be."

"Can you fight?" She put her hand on her hip.

"Let's but it this way: You wouldn't like me when I'm angry. Any other time…" Davis shrugged. "I can be a pretty cool guy."

Dinah let out a ringing laugh. "Are we bringing the fiancé?"

"I don't know," Clark said hesitantly. "I was thinking we'd call Lois and just go for it."

"Lois?" Dinah pursed her lips skeptically.

"Come on. She can whip kick," Clark argued. "Besides, she's basically all the family Chloe has, out side of a padded cell."

Dinah rolled her eyes. "Bring the duct tape."

"Well, you guys have fun storming the castle," Tabby said, picking up her purse and heading for the door. "I have to fetch my little brother and sister from school. You let us know if Chloe's okay, alright?"

"Will do, Tabs." Davis waved his cell phone and looked at it. "Alright. So."

"Let's do this while Oliver's still passed out at his loft," Dinah said, tossing the keys up and then catching them once.



Part Three

Kara's fingers on Chloe's body felt electric. Each kiss was like the gentle shock of a battery. They took comfort in one another's touch, slowly, deliberately. Chloe wasn't certain when she decided that this was okay, but when one is going to die, she supposed, it's better not to waste time.

He stares at her. She stares back.

Every moment she felt Brainiac pressing at her consciousness. He was only suppressed for a short time, and now, with her memories returning, she could sense his consciousness there. Pushing, pushing. He didn't have to press hard. Mostly. He waited.

Black eyes, glittering. Showing her his passive menace.

After all, Brainiac was practically eternal. Chloe knew from his memories that Zod and the Council had thought they had Brainiac under control, but he was merely collecting data from their planet. All the data he could from the race that didn't know it was going to be snuffed out.

That AI was one cold bastard.

So Chloe lived, and she kept warm. It was a gallows love; the damsel and her failed savior exploring one another's bodies while both of them were complete, alive, sane. Now that she had her memories, her connections to her life in Metropolis were few. The wrongness of touching another girl while she was technically someone's fiancée was lost in the revelations her memories, as well as the menace of an alien intelligence threatening to merge with her own, brought her.

Fingers trailing down Chloe's neck, Kara's ears picked up a familiar voice, and she pulled her mouth away from Chloe's breasts. Her cousin. Jimmy. Lois. They were here, with two others.

"They are going to be mad," Kara whispered into Chloe's ear. Chloe looked up and spotted them just as it appeared that they had been spotted themselves.

Jimmy looked on in utter disbelief. "Kara?"

"Oh my God," Lois exclaimed. "My baby cousin is a lesbian. Did I know this? I had to have known this!"

Before any of the other shocked members of their party could say anything, behind them a deep, guttural growl began to grow louder and louder.

Chloe's eyes widened, and she didn't even notice Kara's hand cupping her breast under her blouse. "Davis? What's happening?"

His eyes were the color of fresh blood, and he was shaking, first with his fists out, and then he hugged himself tightly and stumbled backward.

"No, not now…" he muttered.

Clark moved to his side quickly and looked into those horrifying red eyes, which were quickly being overtaken by a sense of helplessness in the anger.

"Don't you let me kill her!" Davis screamed at Clark through clenched teeth. Bony horns ripped through the flesh of his forehead, and instinctively Clark grabbed Davis' shoulders.

"What the hell?" Lois backed away from them quickly, grabbing Jimmy's shirt and dragging him with her.

"Please…" Davis begged. The bony spines split his clothes, and he appeared to be growing, growing.

Kara stood in front of Chloe protectively and buttoned up her shorts. "You stay away from her," she commanded in a firm voice.

Davis let out a loud snarl in response.

"Kara!" Clark shouted. "Not helping!"

Except it was too late; almost seven feet tall now, the gristly gray and white creature in Davis' place was unrecognizable to the human that had been standing there a moment ago, and it threw Clark effortlessly across the beach.

Kara rushed the creature and caught its fist as it attacked her. In a blur of blows, they moved back and forth, back and forth in a deadly dance across the beach.

But Kara was taking damage. The monster's bony protuberances cut her skin whenever it landed a low, and she didn't know how long she could hold this thing off, but the important thing now was for Chloe to get away. In a move of desperation, she pushed it back and let forth a blast of her heat vision, but the monster charged her as though the lasers were nothing. It sent her sprawling to the ground.

There was a screeching, ringing sound in the air that Kara could discern; separate from the sensation of what was surely her first concussion on Earth. The monster stopped a moment, picked Kara up by the neck and charged in another direction. Kara cried out in protest as it used her to beat someone else. The sound stopped.

And the monster began thumping Kara against the ground like a rag doll.

Across the beach, Chloe was running. They'd gotten away from her as the fight had moved, and surely, surely, this thing would kill them all. She couldn't provide mental space for the concept that Davis and this thing were the same. She just moved closer, feeling her anger rising.

Her eyes turned black.

The man stands. He grins widely. It is time.

Chloe's hands rose, fingers splayed, and the monster was sent flying. Her hair flew around her from the telekinetic force coming off of her, and as the monster shook itself off and spotted her, her lips twisted into a smirk. Her head tilted to the side in a sharp motion, almost as though clicking into place.

She lifted one hand to beckon the creature, and a low, oddly accented voice rose out of her throat, "Come to me, Doomsday."

The chilling order caused the beast to straighten up and rush for her. She spun around the creature and caught its arm. It shook from head to toe. Coding ran over its red eyes, until the beast began to shrink and grow still.

Chloe dropped Davis and stared at him coldly. "I alone am Brainiac. Kryptonians are inferior creatures. Do not attempt to cross me again, meatbag."

Davis looked up at her, confused and aching, then passed out.

***

Clark was knocked unconscious when he'd fallen, but only for a few moments. It was enough. There was a small crowd of people staring at the crater in the beach where he'd landed. Clark looked at them for only a moment, then disappeared as he ran back to his friends.

Dinah was unconscious, but intact. Kara sprawled on the beach, bleeding quite a bit. Davis was in a crumpled, naked pile. And Chloe was standing over him, looking at him almost disinterestedly. Clark threw a look back to Kara, knowing she would heal in the sunlight, before moving closer to Chloe.

"Are you alright?" he asked tentatively.

"I'm perfect, Kal-El," she replied in a voice that seemed uncomfortably familiar to him.

Clark shivered. "Please give her back. Take me-"

"The name is Brainiac, Kal-El. I need something with a brain. Unfortunately, the majority of you Kryptonians and humans are far too low functioning to even call properly sentient, let alone to be good enough for me." She twisted her neck to the side and looked at him with her shining black eyes. "Always make a back-up copy. In case someone sends your chips flying."

Clark shook his head and looked down at Davis. "I… Then make a back-up copy. Make one and leave her alone."

"Hrr hrr hrr," Brainiac laughed and looked up at the sun. "No."

"Why not?" Clark demanded, balling his fists. He needed to go help his fallen friends, but he didn't think that letting Brainiac out of his sight would be a good idea. Especially since he had been able to take out that monster where Kara and Dinah had failed.

"I can feel this body dying all around me," Brainiac said with a tinge of disgust in his voice. He sounded less cocky than he had in earlier incarnations, more tired, more broken. "But it serves my purpose for now. I have work to do. This planet doesn't have long to live. And I want to know everything your civilization has available."

He began to walk away from Clark, but just as Clark began to follow him, Brainiac stopped. Clark stopped as well and watched as Brainiac raised a hand to his temple. Then he began to writhe.

Coming around to see what was going on, Clark was pushed back by the telekinetic field. The sand around Chloe's body was beginning to form a circle. Brainiac groaned.

Then he screamed.

The slight blond girl with soft round cheeks looks up. Her eyes lock with the black pits staring back at her. The man with unearthly sharp cheekbones shakes his head and smugly twists his lips, certain of victory. She slowly rises.

A bloodcurdling scream rips out of her throat as she barrels toward him, her limbs lengthening and her eyes going white. She grows, she changes, she encompasses her Self. And finally she leaps upon the man, pressing her thumbs into his eyes and continuing to scream barbarically.

"This is my mind. GET OUT!"

Pushing against the invisible telekinetic field, Clark tried to break his way in, but he couldn't budge it. Behind him he heard transformers blowing, glass shattering and people running for cover.

The pitch black eyes began to fade to white. Then, there was an explosion, and once again, Clark saw stars.

***

Kara came to on the beach. There were no houses nearby, and for one horrifying moment her body tensed and she felt as though she was in the Phantom Zone. However, there was blood all over her, and if she were in the Zone, then the Phantoms would have been attracted to the blood and attacked her by now, so somehow Kara forced her heart to slow to a reasonable pace and sat up. She wondered for a moment if she were on some other beach, if she were still on Earth. The stars still looked like the ones over Coast City, though. Turning her head, she narrowed her eyes to look once again at the skyline.

All of the buildings were reduced to rubble. She came to her feet quickly and looked around the immediate area, spotting Clark and the dark haired man who had transformed lying beside one another and the woman clad in black. They had blood on them, but there didn't appear to be any injuries. Sitting by them was Chloe, legs crossed underneath her as she stared at the ocean.

As Kara came nearer, she realized that Chloe was hovering above the sand.

"Chloe?" Kara whispered almost fearfully.

Chloe looked up at Kara with glowing white eyes.

"You're…" Kara drew nearer, even though this time, Brainiac would probably kill her.

"I am Chloe Sullivan." Chloe blinked, and her head tilted to the side in a slow, strange movement. "I'm also Brainiac, in a way. I think… I reprogrammed him. My ability was helping me to fight him all along. I suppose I'm about the forth or fifth version. Brainiac… 5.0. His AI is gone. I've searched all of my memories. He lost."

Kara knelt beside Chloe. A tear ran down her cheek and her fingers slid along the curve of Chloe's jaw as it narrowed towards her chin.

"Brainiac," Kara whispered. She took in a shaky breath and moved her hands over the sides of Chloe's face. "Say something. Say something… you."

"Something me? Um… Insert, obscure cultural reference here. I'm a little fuzzy. We haven't slept properly since you brought me here. And then there was that… Thing." Chloe looked over at Clark, Davis, and Dinah.

"No?" Kara pinned Chloe's body flush against her and sighed. "God, I thought I'd lost you."

"I'm like a weed from hell. Can't kill me. Not even with an evil computer."

"Mm." Kara sucked in her lower lip and closed her eyes. When Chloe's cold hand touched Kara's face, she shuddered, but didn't try to move away. The creature that had tortured her and thrown her in that desert hell was pressed up against her, safely tucked away in this warm and inviting body. A new and improved version to be sure. Kara just hoped that Chloe hadn't had to trade too much of herself to survive.

Chloe's lips brushed against hers, and Kara felt Chloe's breath against her face. "Is that… still okay?"

"As long as it's you."

"I alone am Chloe Sullivan, Brainiac 5. Accept no substitutes." Chloe laughed softly.

***

The two women sat by the ocean together for some time, waiting for the others to wake up. Chloe occasionally saw a string of code in front of her eyes.

But this time it was because she was thinking of it. It was part of her thoughts, and not his.

It had been such a long time since her mind had been hers. He had been in control for far longer than Chloe had realized. Freedom almost felt unsettling. Like she was a child's balloon that had been suddenly let go. She was floating along, unfettered. She held tight to Kara and watched the tide lapping at the shore.

After a time, Kara looked up, tilting her head to the side. "Someone's hurt."

"Take me," Chloe said. "I'll heal them."

Chloe wrapped her arms around Kara's waist and smiled as the world blurred for half a moment. They stood in front of a collapsed building, and Chloe approached, scanning for life forms. With a frown she hurried forward. Kara tossed large pieces of debris over her shoulder so that Chloe could find the person crying, and then they both knelt before a little girl trapped under a piece of the building.

Kara lifted the piece. Chloe's hands formed a small dome over the girl's wound and a white light emerged. Her lips curved happily as she felt the pain in her belly. It began to diminish almost as soon as she felt it, but the length of the pain hardly mattered. What mattered was that this little girl was sitting up and crying, not from pain but from looking for her mother.

"We'll find her," Chloe said certainly. She looked up at Kara. "You need to tell me where the hurt people are. I can find life forms, but I can't pinpoint the wounded."

Kara lifted up into the air and looked around. "I'll find them. You find her mother."

"This is awful." Chloe shook her head and frowned.

"This is the kind of thing Brainiac does. He doesn't- didn't care about living creatures, just his plans. I'm sure he knew that this kind of destruction was likely to occur from a confrontation. It just didn't matter." Kara looked down and smiled a Chloe. "Luckily, we have the new and improved version."

"I’m just glad my healing power came back." Chloe lifted the little girl onto her hip and began scanning for a genetic pattern that matched the little girl. She could only self-heal as the after-effect of taking on someone's pain, and even then, sometimes it took time. Regardless, she was brimming with energy at the moment. They would take care of this mess.

***

Lois lifted her head groggily and rubbed her hair, grumbling in annoyance. "Smallville?" she called in irritation. She hadn't passed out again, had she? She'd really been trying to watch her ass about that.

"Nope."

She found herself lifted up. Licking her lips, Lois opened her eyes a bit more. "My head hurts."

"Well, you bonked your noggin pretty hard."

"Yeah." Lois swatted the hand on the side of her head. "Watch it."

"I'm just tryin' to keep you from giving in to a concussion."

Lois let her head fall back and bit the side of her lower lip. "Oh. Olsen."

"Oh. Lane." Jimmy sat next to her. "I think the quake is over. We can probably venture out now."

"That wasn't a quake. That was an alien monster," Lois argued.

"After the… That was Davis."

"Who is an alien monster," Lois insisted. "You were the one who said something weird was going on. That's it. Aliens. Like flying barn doors and mini-tornadoes and eclipses."

"What? Lois, just, c'mon." Jimmy pulled her to her feet. "We need to find the others."

Lois felt her head once again as they left the phone building where they'd been hiding. "How did we get here?"

"I dragged you. After the first tremor, I figured there'd be a bigger one comin'," Jimmy explained.

"Whoa." Lois's eyes popped open wide when she saw how the coastline of Coast City was much, much flatter. "You saved my life."

"Well. You saved mine first when you got me outta there." Jimmy shrugged.

"Hmph. Guess I did." Lois preened a little as they walked along the streets.

***

Clark sat up suddenly and looked around himself. Davis was sitting right there beside him, arms on his knees, waiting.

"Welcome back. Did I? Was I the one who hurt you?"

Clark shook his head. "No, well, you tossed me, but I wasn't hurt. Kara was…"

Clark jumped up, and Davis followed him.

"Black Canary woke up first. She went out to check on the people out there," Davis said quietly.

"Yeah? So she's alright?" Clark looked back at Davis.

"She looked at me kind of strange. Told me to stay put. She had blood on her, but no wounds."

"Huh." Clark paused, but then headed for the rise of the beach. "I hear Kara flying around. They're out there taking care of this."

"Did I do that?" Davis pointed to the city.

"What?" Clark pinched his lips together and arched a brow. "No, Brainiac did that."

"Brainiac." Davis took that information in and sighed.

"It's an AI from the planet Krypton."

"Why is it that everything from Krypton is insane?" Davis demanded, throwing his hands in the air.

Clark stopped and turned to Davis. "What other things have you seen from Krypton?"

Davis jerked his head to the side and pointed to himself. Clark felt his heart tug sympathetically and his lips parted. That made sense. It made a lot of sense.

"What else?"

Davis shrugged as though he had nothing left to lose. Maybe he didn't. Clark had seen the monster.

"My mother. She possessed Lois and tried to kill me. She said it would make me stronger."

"Faora?" Clark asked in shock.

"How… How do you know about that?" Davis tented his brows and looked at Clark more closely.

"I just do. This is bigger than you think, Davis. Come on. We need to find Brainiac. He's more dangerous than you are. I'm pretty sure he kicked your ass."

"What's this? When you suspected I was killing people before, you jumped down my throat. Now you know I have, and you're treating me like a brother," Davis protested as he closed in on Clark's heels.

"You didn't kill those people. That thing did, and that thing isn't you. I don't know what to do about that, but I'm not going to condemn you for it." Clark stopped a moment, then looked to the side. "They're this way. Follow me."

He took Davis's wrist and pulled him along.

***

A large group of people were clustered around a fountain that had somehow managed to remain standing. They were talking with one another, a bit shell-shocked but nonetheless unharmed. Or they were now.

Lois and Jimmy approached nervously, and when they spotted Davis and Clark, Lois waved her hand, screaming out "Smallville" until the two came toward them.

"What's going on here?" Davis asked.

"After the earthquake a couple of angels saved us," a little girl who was sitting on the edge of the fountain swinging her legs told them.

"Angels, huh?" Lois asked skeptically.

"They were so angels. Angel are tall and have long blond hair." The girl thought for a moment. "One was short, and I thought angels were s'posed to wear more clothes, but they were still angels."

"Kara," Clark surmised.

"Yes?" Kara descended into the group.

"And Black Canary and Watchtower," Dinah announced coming up from behind them. She eyed Davis warily. "It's funny. I don't really like working with the group Green Arrow has assembled, but this threesome isn't bad."

Clark turned to Dinah quickly. "Is she okay? Chloe?"

"She's something else." Dinah shook her head and laughed.

Kara tugged Clark's sleeve and jerked her head to the side. They followed her behind the ragged half of a building where a white light was beginning to fade. There stood Chloe, hair tousled and wild, holding her hands over a young couple.

"You can go. Please don't tell anyone what you saw," she said calmly. The man and woman stood together, thanking her profusely before running off, glad that they had survived.

Chloe turned to see her friends, family, and fiancé.

"Chloe!" Jimmy ran for her and stopped just short of throwing his arms around her. He seemed confused about how he should react. "You, God… Chloe! You ran off to California with another woman?"

"You betrayed me and were content to let my faulty memory let you skate by." Chloe reached into her pocket and pulled out the ring, then pressed it into his hands. "I didn't run off anywhere, but we're over."

"What? I've waited for you, and trusted you-"

"Trust requires actual trust, Jimmy. You never trusted me. You flipped out over a letter I wrote when I was a teenager. Take a guess that Clark isn't the Kent I'm interested in anymore." Chloe walked past him to approach Clark, who wrapped his arms around her tightly. "I'm sorry."

"You didn't do this on purpose. I'm just so glad that it's you!" Clark laughed. "And you have your power back. Does that mean Brainiac is gone?"

"It means that version of Brainiac has been deleted. From me, anyway." Chloe pulled away a little and looked up at Clark sadly. "I'm saying I'm sorry because I'm leaving."

Clark blinked dumbly.

"Hey!" Lois moved in on them and put her hand on Chloe's shoulder. "I know Jimmy's not the catch you wanted, but you don't have to leave. Kara can stay with us in Metropolis! Maybe I overreacted a little, but I'm okay with you dating a girl, really. I mean, military brats move all over the place, and I've seen some gals with great relationships!"

Chloe shook her head. "It's not you, Lois. I just have to get away for a little while," she whispered, feeling tears in her eyes. She couldn’t say how glad she was to feel that grief, since the likelihood of losing her emotions permanently had been great.

"Chloe, wait-" Jimmy protested.

"She said it's over, buddy," Davis snapped. Jimmy took a step back. Davis crossed his arms and held on tightly.

"You're not going to wolf out on us again, are you?" Lois asked.

"No. Well. I guess." Davis looked at Chloe hard. "Kara's better than Jimmy. Can't say I don't wish it was me."

Kara and Davis exchanged a dark look, and Kara breezed past him to Chloe's side.

"We're going to go search for Kandor together. Chloe needs some space, and I could use a partner. It's not forever," Kara promised.

"We'll be back," Chloe agreed. "I just need to do this. Everything is so different. We tried to clean up Brainiac's mess. But I still need to be doing something. Please understand."

"You!" Lois pointed at her, blinking quickly to keep tears from falling. "You had better come back. And call, whenever you're in cell phone range, okay? God, this is insane. We find you just to lose you again!"

Lois hugged her cousin and held her tightly.

"This won't be like Lucy. I'll come back. I swear." Chloe kissed her cheek. "And when I do, I'll explain what's going on."

"Love you, little cousin."

"I love you too."

Lois pulled back and wiped her cheek. "Okay. Um. I've got to go. Now. But call me when you can." She wiggled her fingers at Chloe and hurried out of sight.

Kara put her arm around Chloe's shoulders and squeezed tightly.

"Do you guys mind if I have a moment alone with Clark?" Chloe asked softly.

"Chloe, we need to talk," Jimmy protested.

"You can talk to yourself. You've dumped me twice. It's your turn. This relationship never worked. Find yourself another dumb blond," Chloe snapped a little coldly. Kara rubbed her arm and kissed her hair, which seemed to calm her just a bit.

Jimmy backed away, face crumbling, and disappeared around the side of the building. Kara gave her another squeeze and followed after, smacking the side of Davis's shoulder as the man cast a puppy dog look over his shoulder at Chloe.

"Well," Chloe said after a long pause. "I think I'll miss you most of all, Scarecrow."

"Does that mean you think I don't have a brain?" Clark joked halfheartedly, thinking back to Brainiac's comments and wondering how much Chloe would be like him now, and if he would ever come back to threaten her.

Chloe giggled, as tears rolled down her cheeks. Clark wiped them away with one finger.

"You know, the Scarecrow really had his brains all along. He just thought he didn't." Chloe nodded. "You'll be fine, too."

"I don't know about that. You're my best friend," Clark swore fervently.

Chloe took a long pause, then more tears came and she shook her head, saying bitterly, "I loved you, Clark. I'd have done anything for you."

"What?" Clark put his hands on her shoulder gently.

"I told you that I wanted to keep my memories," she whispered, looking at his red shirt stretched across his chest.

Clark's eyes widened, realizing what she was referring to. "Chloe, you don't understand! You were in danger because of me."

"That wasn't your choice to make!" she shouted back angrily. Her head lifted and her tearful eyes met his.

"Chloe-"

"You're no different than Brainiac. I'm not yours to do with what you will. I don’t want to hear it, Clark. I don't even want to look at you." Chloe's lower lip crumbled, and she turned away from him. "This is why I have to leave. Because I can't be near you right now. I need a mission, and I need to be around someone who understands, and you don't understand. Even now, you're telling yourself that I'm overreacting. That you had the best of intentions. That for my own good."

She hugged her arms and took a few steps away. "Well, Lex had the best of intentions. Lionel had the best of intentions. I'm sure even Zod had the best of intentions, from his point of view. But in the end—and believe me, I know I'm not perfect—but in the end, it's your actions that distinguish the good guys from the bad guys. And until you accept that your powers don't mean that you get to pull rank and be right, no matter what the circumstances, you're one of the bad guys."

"Chloe…"

Clark found himself unable to formulate anything else to say. When Chloe turned around, her eyes were as soft and sweet a green as ever, but the intensity was so much greater that Clark took a step back just as she began to lift off the ground.

"I'll always love you, Clark. But I have to protect myself, too. And when I find myself understanding what Lex tried to do, then we just need to be apart. Especially if I have the power to do something about it."

"Don't go," Clark pleaded, reaching up for her.

"You've really got to get on that flying thing, Clark," Chloe said with a weak laugh.

"No, Chloe, please!"

"Goodbye."

Like a colt on its first legs, Chloe was still unused to the new abilities the Brainiac software afforded her. Interfacing with technology was one thing, something she had vague memories of since she had first been infected, but her little human body had never flown independently. Her mind had worked out how the telekinetic power propelled her body forward, and as the wind blew in her face, she moved her hand above her head, the way Kara did when she flew, to break the air coming at her.

Steadily she rose higher and higher into the night sky. The crisp air moved against her skin like silk, ruffling her clothing around her. Her eyes explored the stars, then she filled her lungs deeply. She gave one sad look to the sight of her best friend, standing there alone, growing smaller and smaller.

Then with a surge of courage, she shot into the sky and out of view.

***

"You can breathe, can't you?"

"I'm fine, Kara."

Kara's strong, sleek arms folded around Chloe's waist, and she lifted her legs up to support Chloe's as they floated together, looking out over the Earth's horizon, just inside the atmosphere. Kara looked a bit distrustfully at the transparent field Chloe had constructed so that she could breathe this far up. It only flickered occasionally when the light hit it right. Kara supported them because she was stronger, and very much the better flier, probably always would be. And so much faster, faster than Clark even.

"It's so beautiful. So blue," Chloe murmured. "Looks peaceful."

"Pity it's not.

Chloe narrowed her eyes and looked over her shoulder. Her lips crooked to the side. Kara grinned and captured them in a kiss.

"They're going to be fine a little while without you, you know," Kara whispered.

"Did you talk to him?"

"He's upset." Kara tensed her lips and sucked in her cheeks a little. "He misses you."

"I know."

"Oh, we can check in on him. Steal his cereal. Leave him little notes. Whenever you're ready."

Chloe drew butter-colored lock of hair behind her ear, looking down on the billions of sentient life forms on the planet. "Well, I'm afraid it won't be any time soon. I kind of need a break from life here on Earth."

Kara's hand moved down Chloe's abdomen, down her leg. She squeezed her thigh. Chloe reached back and carded her fingers through Kara's flaxen mane. Her heart fluttered, and her eyes closed slowly. She tried to be still, and to feel Kara's heart beating as well. In the stillness, there was peace. Nowhere on Earth was this quiet, this alone. It was like nothing Chloe had ever felt, this stillness. Nothing in the cold atmosphere besides stray space flotsam and their warm bodies.

"I think I'm ready for adventure now." Chloe opened her eyes, sighing as she took in the sight of the Earth once again. She'd never imagined that she would see it from this angle. She moved upward a little, then turned in Kara's arms. Kara's lips curved as their bodies pressed together, and Chloe hooked her arms around Kara's neck.


"You ready?"

"We'll never be freer than we are right now, Kara." Chloe smiled as Kara secured her arms around her, for a squeeze. Then she smirked wickedly.

"Then let's go."

Kara shot off, leaving Chloe where she was. Chloe hovered a moment uncertainly, until she spotted Kara floating backward, waiting for her. Then beaming, grinning ear to ear, Chloe flew after her.

Two lights chasing one another through the sky.