Lex called a representative from Belle Reve to come and pick up Tina—they didn't usually do that, but he managed to persuade them.

After she was gone, Lex and Dean retired to Lex's study. They were both exhausted, but neither of them were ready for sleep. He'd grabbed a bottle of scotch and six pack of cheap beer from one of the kitchens, and they both kicked back on the couch.

"Weird case," Dean said as he opened his second bottle.

"Yeah." Lex sipped at his shot glass, wondering how many more people he was going to run into like this. He wished he could talk to Clark about it; he was sure Clark would know more, but Clark just wasn't willing to talk about it. "I tell you about my car accident?"

"Heard a little from Tina. Clark saved your life?"

Lex shook his head in frustration. "Honestly, I don't know what happened."

"What do you mean?"

Lex had had every intention of telling Dean the whole story. He was frustrated with himself for getting in the accident in the first place, frustrated with Clark for lying to him, frustrated with Uncle Jon for backing up Clark's lies. But Lex didn't really want any of that getting back to Clark, either. Dean would either insist on telling Clark about what was on Lex's mind, or he'd insist on telling Sam, and Sam would talk to Clark. And Clark just . . . didn't want to talk about this.

So all Lex said was, "Keep an eye on Smallville in the news."

Dean smirked. "You got it."

----------------------------------------

Jonathan couldn't sleep.

It had been twenty-four hours since Clark had told them about what had happened with Tina. For him, the most concerning part wasn't the information he shared, but the fact that Clark was already speaking about these encounters as if they were ordinary everyday occurrences. That worried Jonathan far more than anything else.

Martha had fallen asleep over an hour ago. Jonathan couldn't help getting up to peek into Clark's room, just to make sure he was okay.

His bed was empty.

Jonathan's heart pounded as he checked the bathroom, the living room, and the kitchen before finding a pair of slippers and venturing out into the cool night air. The lights in the barn were on; Jonathan let his breath out and went into the barn.

Clark was standing up in the loft, staring out at the stars.

Jonathan climbed the steps slowly, making enough noise that he wouldn't startle his son, and came to stand beside Clark. "What's on your mind, son?"

Clark looked over at him. "I lied to Lex today."

Jonathan nodded slowly. "About what happened with Tina."

"I lied to him about the car accident, too. He's asked me about it a few times, and I know he can tell I'm lying."

"Has he gotten upset with you?"

"No, it's worse than that. He looks . . . disappointed. I think he knows I'm lying."

Jonathan took a step closer. "Clark—"

"I want to tell him my secret."

"Clark."

"I'm serious, Dad. He'd never tell anyone, and he'd be willing to do anything to protect me."

Jonathan had started to understand the frustration Clark often seemed to be feeling around his secret. Having to lie to his friends, having to keep secrets, having to avoid situations where he might hurt someone or expose himself . . . Jonathan knew Martha sometimes worried that their attempts to give their son a normal life were doing more harm than good.

But Jonathan still had nightmares about Clark strapped to a table, covered in probes and needles and surrounded by glowing meteor rock. Of course, Lex would never do that to Clark, but Lionel absolutely would. It wasn't worth taking the risk that Lionel would find out what his son knew.

It also wasn't fair to Lex. His college years proved that. At best, he was suffering through something, and it wouldn't be fair to burden him with a dangerous secret. At worst, he had a rebellious streak worth being wary about. Either way, Jonathan couldn't be sure that Lex was a safe confidante.

None of those were worth bringing up, though, because really, this had nothing to do with Lex. Jonathan didn't want Clark revealing his secret to any of his friends, especially the ones who cared the most about him. He didn't want anyone else who cared about Clark to have to suffer through his nightmares.

Jonathan took a deep breath. "Son, we've never told anyone else, we don't know—"

"Tina knew. And Greg Arkin."

Clark had a point, but Greg was dead now, and Tina was in an asylum. Besides, Jonathan would never have consented to them knowing Clark's secret, either. Just because telling Lex was less dangerous didn't mean it was safe. "These were meteor mutants, Clark, you can't—"

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"Sam knows."

It took Jonathan a second to figure out what Clark was talking about. "Sam Winchester? You told him?"

"Kind of. He had almost figured it out, anyway."

"And you didn't tell me this?"

"I knew you would react like this!"

Jonathan's jaw clenched. "You're grounded."

"I was ten, Dad! You're going to ground me for something I did when I was ten?"

"No, I'm grounding you for taking four years to tell me about it."

"That's not fair!"

It wasn't, and Jonathan knew he'd hear all about that from Martha, but this wasn't about fairness. This was about sending a message to keep Clark safe. "Two weeks. You come home right after school and do your homework and chores."

"Lex got hurt today, I was going to check on him tomorrow."

"Your mother will invite him here. But you will not tell anyone else your secret, or it's going to be a month's grounding, you understand me?"

"No, I don't understand!"

"That information isn't safe. For anyone."

"So I just have to keep lying about who I am? To Lex, to Lana, to everyone."

Jonathan almost flinched. "I'm sorry, son."

Clark gave his father one last glare before storming out of the barn.

----------------------------------------

When Chloe returned home from the mansion, well past midnight, her dad hugged her for almost a minute solid, so tightly she couldn't breathe, his arms shaking. She cringed in his arms, wishing she'd thought to leave a note so she wouldn't worry him so much. When he finally let her go, his eyes had hardened with uncharacteristic sternness, and he informed her she was grounded for a week if she didn't have a very, very good explanation for why she'd taken off in the middle of the night without letting him know. So she told him everything—about the shifter, about the meteor rocks, about Sam and Dean and Lex. The hugging started right back up again, and when he finished, he grounded her for a month instead. She figured he probably needed that, and maybe she did, too.

The phone call that had distracted Tina, it turned out, had been her father. He was mostly asleep on the couch during Chloe's conversation with Tina—pretending to be Lex—on the phone, but he'd overheard enough bits and pieces to guess where Chloe might be. Of course, Tina had denied having any idea.

A few days after the incident, Lex dropped a note at the Torch office requesting a meeting with Chloe at the mansion. She hoped she wasn't in for yet another scolding—she hadn't seen Agent Winchester since their last encounter, and she really didn't want to—but Lex was alone when his security guard escorted her into his lavish home office.

"Thanks for coming," Lex said.

"Is everything okay? Did everything get squared away with the bank robbery charges?"

"That's all over. My alibi was enough."

She nodded. "That's good."

"I called you over here because I wanted to show you something."

"Oh? What's that?"

Lex gestured for her to follow him, and he went down the hall to a closed door. He took a key out of his pocket and opened the door to let her into the room.

A little staircase led down into a large, dimly lit space. Lex's destroyed car was in the middle of the room, and there were a couple of stands with different items—a couple of samples of meteor rock, a few other items she didn't recognize.

"What is this place?" Chloe asked.

"You have your Wall of Weird, I have mine. Except mine is more of a room."

She let out a short laugh. "Room of Weird doesn't have the same ring to it."

He shrugged. "I was never one for snappy titles. I take it that's your gig."

Chloe paced around a little. "You might be as obsessed as I am."

"Room of Obsession, then." He chuckled. "But this is important to me. I almost died in that car accident."

"What does the car accident have to do with the meteor rocks?"

"It might not. But look again."

Chloe looked a little closer at the car. It looked like the hood of the car had been peeled back. "Wow. How hard did you hit the water?"

"Doesn't matter. Have you ever seen car accident damage like that?"

"Are you saying . . ." She shook her head. "You think . . ."

"I don't know what to think." He came to stand in front of her. "The crash knocked me out, but I remember everything leading up to it. I remember looking down at my phone, and these big spiked metal coils out in the middle of the road. I remember losing control, and . . ."

"And what?"

"I could swear I remember hitting Clark. At the time, I thought we were both dead. But his story is that he watched my car go off the bridge, jumped into the water, and pulled me out."

Chloe blinked a few times. "So, why talk to me about it? Why not talk to him?"

"He doesn't want to talk about it. He avoids the subject whenever I bring it up."

"I know that feeling," Chloe muttered.

"Jonathan Kent did the same thing when I talked to him. Lana Lang, too, to a lesser extent. You were the only person who would talk with me about this."

"Do you think Clark is a meteor mutant?"

"Maybe. Or he knows about them. Or maybe it's something else entirely. One way or another, I want to get to the bottom of this."

"Why are you showing me all of this?"

"Because I think you want the same thing, which makes us allies. I want to learn from you. And I think there's a lot you can learn from me."

"Such as?" Chloe could have kicked herself for her wording—it sounded sarcastic when she'd really just wanted him to keep talking about whatever was on her mind.

He gave a slight smile. "Monsters."

"Monsters?"

"Had my first encounter with them when I was sixteen and stayed with the Kents for a summer on their farm."

She shook her head. "W-what kind of monsters?"

"Got anything on your Wall of Weird about genies, or werewolves, or ghosts?"

Under any other circumstances, Chloe would have sworn he was just mocking her. As it was, she'd just helped to take down a shape shifter—she'd believe just about anything at this point. "Do the meteor rocks make people into . . . monsters?"

"A week ago, I would have said no, the meteor rock just makes existing monsters worse. But after seeing what happened with Tina?" Lex shook his head. "There are shifters by birth, but Tina was a whole different species. And I think we're just going to keep getting more of them."

"But Tina wasn't . . . like, a monster."

"She killed someone and injured at least four other people." Lex frowned. "Five, if you're hurt."

"No, I'm fine. But . . . did Tina really kill her mother on purpose?"

"No, I don't think so, and I don't think she meant to wreak so much havoc with us, either. But that makes the meteor rocks even more dangerous. Meteor mutants aren't mindless killing machines. These are human beings whose bodies and minds have been altered by means they can't control or understand. This is bigger than us, and we might be the only ones bothering to investigate."

"But . . . Wait, you're telling me real monsters exist? Like, not meteor mutants. Real monsters." This was better than Christmas—and also some of the worst news she'd ever heard, all at once.

Lex paused a moment, then said, "Tell you what. I'll fill you in about my last few encounters, and you can tell me all about those articles on your Wall of Obsession."

"Weird," Chloe corrected, grinning. "Definitely sticking with Wall of Weird."

"Weird it is." Lex smiled, and he led her back up into his study.