Chloe woke up suddenly as someone clicked on the light over her. She pulled herself halfway up for a moment, and then moaned and fell back, squeezing her eyes closed. The light was stabbing painfully through her eyelids, making her wince. “It can’t be morning yet,” she muttered, flopping around on the cot.

“Technically it is,” someone said behind her. She grunted and rolled over, peering out of one eyelid. Whitney was sitting on the other cot, staring at her. When he saw her looking, he gave her a tiny grin. “Sorry about waking you up like that,” he said, “I just figured you’d want something to eat now. Seeing as you didn’t have anything at all last night.”

Chloe only vaguely remembered the end of last night. Clark and Lex had kept talking throughout the meeting, each asking the other questions about what had happened during the last fourteen years, what was different about each different version of Smallville. It had been interesting, but also a little frightening to hear about how things could have turned out so differently. The two of them had gone on for hours, and at the end, Chloe’s head was swimming. They’d given her and Clark this tiny room at the side of the factory and two cots to sleep on. It seemed that she’d fallen asleep as soon as her head had hit the pillow.

“You woke me up for breakfast?” she grumbled, drawing her blanket more tightly around herself.

“Dinner actually. We’re kind of nocturnal around here,” he explained. “We have to be; it’s easier to move around at night. Only a few people are up during the day, and they don’t cook.”

Chloe yawned and opened her eyes a little wider. “What’s on the menu?” she mumbled, her brain still foggy.

“Cold, runny eggs and some bacon,” he told her. “All stolen fresh from your friendly neighborhood Luthormart. And your choice of instant coffee, also stolen. Oh and word of advice: don’t have the bacon. Luthormarts tend to ignore those ‘sell by dates’ on a lot of things.”

“As long as it’s not green,” she mumbled, still wrapped up in blankets.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they were,” he said dryly.

She pulled the blankets back from her face and looked up at him. “Now, you don’t sound bitter,” she commented.

“Places like that put my dad’s store out of business, remember?”

“I thought the fire did that,” she said. He gave her an ugly look.

“Thank you,” he said sarcastically. “I needed to be reminded about that this morning. Now, do you want to get up and eat, or should I just bring it back here and dump it over your head?”

“Alright,” she said, yawning. Now that Chloe was awake, she did suddenly feel hungry. Starved in fact. She couldn’t remember the last time she’d eaten. She kicked the blanket off herself and sat up slowly, rubbing her arms. Then she noticed that the cot Whitney was sitting on was empty. “Where’s Clark?” she asked nodding towards it. The cot didn’t even look like it had been slept in.

Whitney glanced down at the cot and shrugged. “He’s around, I think,” he shrugged. “I haven’t seen him.”

“Not too concerned about it, huh?” she asked, raising her eyebrows.

“Pete’s keeping an eye on him,” Whitney said, looking away suddenly. “I’ve had… other things on my mind,” he said slowly.

Chloe nodded, thinking back to Tina. She wanted to ask about her, but Whitney didn’t look like he was very interested in talking about her. “Clark said he wanted to think last night,” she said to fill the moment. “I guess he’s still off doing the big brood.” She hesitated and then looked up at him.

“What did you think of all that?” she asked. “Last night, I mean. About things being so different where he’s from?” Whitney fidgeted on the cot, tapping his fingers together idly. He seemed to be deliberately avoiding making eye contact. “Come’on,” she said. “You have to have thought about it?”

“Yeah, I guess I did,” he said quietly. He tapped his fingers together again.

“Well?” she asked, leaning forwards.

“It kinda scares me,” he admitted. Chloe sat back, blinking. Of all the responses she’d been expecting, that had been the last. She knew what he meant though. She saw herself, that ‘other’ self in Clark’s picture and shuddered. It was just so unnatural; it wasn’t her, but then it was her, in a way.

“What do you mean?” she asked, trying to catch his eye.

“Well, it makes me question a lot of things,” he told her slowly. He tapped his fingers together faster. He looked uncomfortable sitting there, trying to put what he felt into words. “I mean… you go through life, you make choices, some good, some bad, and well, that’s who you are,” he said slowly. “Sometimes you might think: ‘well, who would I be if things had turned out differently?’ but that’s all talk. You don’t really think about it.”

“Until somebody drops out of the sky and makes you,” she remarked. Whitney nodded a little glumly.

“What scares me the most though,” he said, “is that there might be more worlds like his out there; different versions of Smallville. Does that mean they’re all… I don’t know… valid or something? Or is there one ‘right’ world: the world that’s supposed to happen? Are the rest of us just mistakes then? Like, something went wrong, and we’re just being left to rot here. ‘Cause it would explain a lot about this place,” he muttered quietly.

“Lex seems to think we’re a mistake,” she said suddenly, remembering what he’d said at the meeting.

“I think Lex finds it easier to consider us all one big mistake,” he grumbled. “He’s always hated everything about who he is. In his mind, anything else couldn’t be worse.” He stared off into space, frowning. Then he seemed to think of something and stood up quickly.

“Uh, we’ve got some things for you,” he said, picking some clothes up off the floor. They were carefully folded up in a stack, and looked to have more things saved from the Fordman’s fire. One of the shirts on the top even looked to have been charred a little on the sleeve. “It’s not much, but we figured you’d want to change.”

“Thanks,” she said, taking it.

“We had to guess on sizes,” he admitted. “And most of the stuff is secondhand, at best. They’re clean though, that’s the important thing. Oh and that pile’s Clark’s,” he added, nodding towards another pile on the floor.

“Thanks,” she said again, smiling at him. She lifted up the charred shirt and stared at it for a moment. “I don’t suppose you’ve got a warm shower here, do you?”

He smiled for a moment. “Shower yes, warm no. There’s an old chemical shower I’ll show you.” He saw her blank look and elaborated. “This place used to be a factory, and if there was an accident, like a worker got sprayed with chemicals, you stood him under a shower and pulled the chain. That’s all. Again, it’s clean, but it’s not exactly heated. And there’s only one for all of us, so you can’t spend all day under it.”

“Not too much chance of that happening,” she muttered. Then she realized she was being ungrateful and backpedaled. “Sorry, I mean if it weren’t for you guys –“

“What? If I hadn’t taken you both in, you’d be locked up right now?” he asked, smiling half-heartedly at her. He looked tired, exhausted really. “Maybe you would be, who knows though? Or if Pete hadn’t taken us all in? He didn’t have to do that, you know. We’re nothing but a risk to him, and Lex. Or if you and Clark…” he paused for a moment. “Well a lot of things would be different if it wasn’t for Clark huh?” he asked, his smile slipping away. “Maybe that’s the point of all this.”

“It’s not his fault,” Chloe told him seriously. He looked up at her, and then shrugged.

“Maybe that’s the point then. It’s nobody’s fault. It just happened,” he sighed. “And we all just have to live with it.” Chloe stared at him, unable to think of a thing to say.

“Well on that note, I guess a little more bad news isn’t going to change anything,” he said quickly, in the way that suggested he wanted to get through what he had to say as fast as possible. “We’ve decided to give you this room. We’re making one for Clark too down at the other end of the factory.”

“My room… right,” she said, glancing around. It was a room in only the most generous use of the word. It had been formed by curtaining off an area against the old wall of the factory. As it was, three of her walls were formed by old blankets and tarps strung on line from the ceiling. It gave very little privacy though, and almost made her feel she was in an old tent. Someone had strung an old halogen lamp on a pipe and hung it over her cot, dangling from the electrical wires hanging from the ceiling. Since there was no tarp strung across the top of her room, the only roof was the factory roof, far up above them.

“Hey, it’s not like the rest of us have anything better,” he pointed out.

“Even Lex?”

Whitney shook his head. “He doesn’t stay here that long, he can’t really. Not without his father starting to get suspicious.”

“Guess I hadn’t thought of that,” she said slowly. Then she frowned and looked up at him. “So what’s the bad news then?”

“That this is going to be your room now until the day we’re driven out of here, or we’re all caught and killed,” he said quickly. “Whichever comes first.”

Chloe stopped and stared at him. “Excuse me?”

“You know where this base is, you’ve seen us, especially Lex, and you know that Clark is here. That’s a lot of information we can’t risk Luthorcorp getting hold of,” he explained patiently. His voice was firm, but he looked at her sympathetically. “So, for your protection and ours, we think it would best if you stayed here with us.”

“For how long?” she snapped. “The rest of my life?”

He shook his head and started to say something, but then he glanced at her and seemed to falter. “Maybe,” he admitted quietly. “However long it takes to make sure we’re all safe.”

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

“What happens if I don’t want to wait, huh?” she rounded on him. “What happens if I don’t feel like joining up with your little revolution? If I walk out that door right now and say ‘kiss my ass’, are you going to drag me back in and chain me down? Or wait, why bother doing that when you can just shoot me and get it done with then?”

“No, we wouldn’t do that,” he shook his head angrily. “Look, Chloe, I know this isn’t fair, but-“

“You’re damn right it’s not fair! I’m not going to sit here and-“

“-But this is too important to be so selfish about,” he continued over her. She flared up at the word ‘selfish’, but kept quiet as he went on. “If we let you go and you get caught, they’ll find out everything you know. You may not want to tell them, but they’ll find a way to make you.” He sighed and sat back, looking at her wearily. “This isn’t a game, Chloe. If they catch you, they’ll kill you, and it won’t be quick. Even if you’re uncle is a general,” he added.

She stared at him, some of her anger leaving her, but she still didn’t want to accept this. “So it’s in my best interests to stay, is that it?” she asked, hating the tone in her voice but unable to help herself.

“Yes,” he said simply and then added, “for a while at least. Until things are a little safer at least.”

“Oh, and when would that be?” she demanded, getting up. She paced across the room and stared at the paint smeared tarp that made up one of her walls. “Until Luthorcorp is all gone? Until Lex is running things instead of his dad? Wait, hey, what am I worried about? At the rate things are going that should be happening two weeks from never!” she yelled.

“Things aren’t going that badly,” he told her quietly. He was resting his head in his hands as he sat on the cot. Chloe gave him a withering look and continued pacing.

“Easy for you to say,” she snarled. “You get to sit things out in your nice little house and watch the rest of us get carted away on the news.”

“I never sat things out,” he said suddenly, his head snapping up. He glared at her for a minute, his ears red, and then he looked away. “And as for my house,” he added, “you don’t really see me getting back to it, do you?”

Chloe looked at him, her anger fading. “You too?” she asked.

He nodded at her shortly, but then he sighed and shrugged it away. “We probably would’ve come out here soon enough anyways,” he admitted. “We’ve been working with Pete and Lex for a while now. I guess the together we probably know more about this outfit than even Lex might. They would’ve brought us out here eventually to give us more protection.”

“’We’?” Chloe asked. “You mean, you and Tina?”

Whitney flinched and looked away from her. He stood up quickly, almost knocking over the cot in his haste. “If I don’t save you something there won’t be anything left,” he said hurriedly. “We don’t get a lot of food around here so we have to make it stretch. I’ll… uh… let you get ready,” he said haltingly, as he backed away from her, his hands fumbling with the curtain that served as her doorway. He finally pulled open the cloth and edged through it, keeping his eyes away from her. She stared after him as the curtain swung close wildly. Then she looked down at her rude little cot and the pile of clothes on the floor. There wasn’t even a carpet for her, just a hard concrete slab.

Slowly, she looked around her tiny little corner, at the cold floor, the paint spackled tarp walls and the old, faded curtain doorway. Then she sighed and started to pick up the clothes and pile them on the cot. “Terrific. Just terrific. Home sweet home,” she said sadly to herself.

After the meeting had ended, Clark had found himself a dark, lonely section of the factory and had not moved since. It looked to have been an old break room of sorts. There were old, dusty lockers on the wall, some hanging open, covered with cobwebs. A few stained wooden chairs surrounded an old table in the center of the room. None of the chairs had looked too safe, so Clark had just climbed onto the middle of the table and sat down, pulling his knees to his chest. He’d wanted some quiet place he could think, but unfortunately, thinking seemed to be the last thing he was capable of doing right now.

His thoughts seemed to be running away with him. He’d try and sort through what Lex had told him, to get some understanding of what was happening, but then he’d be sidetracked by a memory from home; of his father, of his mother, particularly of his mother. He’d remember her voice and face, the way she always made his eggs just right, how she’d laugh at a joke of his fathers. Then he’d think that she’d probably never laughed much in the last thirteen years, not in this world at least. That sort of thing would definitely snarl his thinking.

When he did manage to push his thoughts away from his family, all he could think about then was Lana. How had she gone from the girl he remembered to the soldier she was now? What had happened to make her change so much? At some point during the night, he had pulled out his wallet and taken out the picture Lana had given him yesterday. He stared at her smiling face and remembered the look she’d given him at the farm this morning, the hate and fury in her eyes. It seemed impossible that it was the same girl, but his heart knew different. It had been her on the farm, and before, in the sewers as well, he realized. What’s more, he had a sinking feeling he knew what had changed her so much.

Clark had always been afraid of what would have happened if Lana had ever found out about his secret. Aside for the inherent shock of it, was the fact that his arrival had brought the meteor shower that had killed her parents. He’d lain awake nights wondering, half-dreading her reaction to the truth. What would she say, he’d ask himself. What would she think of him? Would she blame him? It was possible, he thought darkly. It was more than possible.

No, a part of himself argued back. Lana wouldn’t think that. She couldn’t!

But she does, that other voice answered.

My Lana wouldn’t, he thought again. She wouldn’t.

But if your Lana had grown up here, that same voice asked, would she be any different? Clark couldn’t think of an answer to that.

He didn’t know how long he’d been sitting there when Pete stuck his head into the room. “Still here, huh?” he asked, looking at Clark. He stepped inside, picked up a chair from the floor and set it down. He sat down in it with a quiet sigh and glanced at Clark. “Long night?”

“Have you been keeping track of me?” Clark asked, not bothering to look up.

“Did you think I was just going to let you wander around here on your own?” He smiled a little sympathetically. “Not that you did a lot of wandering. You looked like you needed a little time to yourself so I backed off for a while.”

“Thanks,” he mumbled, still looking at the photo.

“Not as easy as it sounds,” he smiled a bit wryly, “I have to admit I’m more than a little curious about you. I mean, well, no pun intended, but people like you don’t fall out of the sky everyday.” He grinned and waited. Clark looked at him blankly and then turned back to the picture.

“Right,” Pete fumbled, “well anyways I don’t think I introduced myself last night. Pete Ross,” he stuck out his hand.

Clark stared at it and then looked up at him. “I know who you are,” he said quietly.

“Do you?” It was a simple question, but as Clark stared at Pete’s hand, he realized that he didn’t quite know the answer. Slowly he reached up and took it.

“Clark Kent,” he said quietly.

“Glad to meet you,” Pete smiled back. He let go and they looked at each other silently for a moment. The moment was strange, but not unpleasant. “Sorry the accommodations are a little lousy,” Pete remarked finally. He glanced around and kicked one of the dusty chairs. “But at least I can promise you a little better than this. We’ve got a room set aside for you. And food if you’re interested.”

“What about Chloe? Where is she?”

“We’ve got a room for her too. Can’t really throw her out on her ass, can we? Way Whitney tells it, she’ll helped out a bit on the farm.” He laughed. “Chloe Sullivan. She’s the last person I would have picked to wind up in this. Then again, if you’d told me three days ago that this was all going to be happening, I would’ve thought you were crazy.”

“I wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for her.” Pete glanced at him quickly and then nodded. Clark saw the look in his eyes and explained, “Chloe. She took me to Whitney’s and he brought me here.”

“I still have a hard time believing all of that,” he remarked. “Girl I knew wasn’t too up on helping anyone other than herself.”

“You knew her?”

“Reputation only; from school, what little I had of it, and from around town. Whitney probably told you about the fire, so you know what she was like,” he said.

Clark nodded slowly, thinking back to how he had met her only two days ago; on the run with a stolen cashbox. Had it only been two days ago, he wondered. It felt like a lifetime. “She’s changed,” he said in her defense.

“We’ll see,” Pete said. “We’ve told her she’s welcome to stay so she’ll have a chance to prove it.”

“To stay… I thought… I mean I wanted her to go home after this,” he said. “She shouldn’t be here, it’s too dangerous.”

“She doesn’t really have much choice in it now, Clark. You think you’re the only one Luthorcorp wants to get a hold of? Lex ID’ed Chloe less than an hour after your little stunt at the Talon.”

“Well that was nice of him,” Clark said between his teeth.

“It’s not like they wouldn’t have figured it out without him,” Pete pointed out bluntly. “Chloe hasn’t really lead what you might call a quiet life.”

“So she’s stuck here because of me,” Clark said quietly, sinking back down a little.

“If you’re looking to wallow in self-pity, sure, you can think of it like that; or you could realize that she’s stuck here because of Luthorcorp and get on with things. I tend to go with the latter.” Clark blinked and stared at him. “Personal experience,” Pete told him.

“Speaking of getting on with things,” he remarked, “Lex and I want to have a talk with you. If you’re not too busy that is,” he added ingenuously.

“Sorry we haven’t been able to put you up somewhere nicer,” Lex said quietly. There was stubble on his chin and his eyes were bloodshot. He looked exhausted, but he sounded in control. “Of course after the sewer and the Kent farm, this place must seem pretty luxurious by comparison.” Pete made a slight movement to cover his face, but Lex ignored it. He stared at Clark, smiling. They were in Lex’s private office, or as private as an old storage room could be in an abandoned factory. It was dark, dank, and smelled faintly of ammonia, but it at least had four walls and a real ceiling. And a door. It had swung shut heavily behind Clark, locking behind him.

Lex was sitting at a desk, photo’s and files spread across the desk. Most seemed to be of himself, Clark noticed uneasily. Lex saw him looking and held one up. “It’s a bit blurred, taken from a helicopter, you understand,” he apologized. “From two days ago, at the Talon. We weren’t expecting you, or how strong you’d be. Took us all by surprise I think.”

“Understatement of the year,” Pete said idly. He was leaning against the wall across from Lex. He looked at Clark calmly and then back at Lex. “Get to the point, Lex,” he said, not unkindly. “You can’t keep your father waiting forever.”

“Your father…?” Clark asked. “You’re going back to him?”

“I have to keep up appearances,” Lex shrugged. He blinked and then pressed his palms against his eyes. “He thinks I’m overseeing a paternity suit or meeting for a tryst or God knows what else,” he said, yawning. “He tends to think the worst of me.”

“Can’t imagine why,” Pete smiled.

“I’ve always tried to be a dutiful son...” Lex said with a straight face. “Living up the Luthor name is a burden.”

“The point…” Pete reminded him again.

“Right, right,” Lex said irritably. Then he fixed his eyes on Clark and all traces of irritation or exhaustion left him. “The point is, what are we going to do now? Or I suppose really the question is: what are you going to do now?”

“What do you mean?” Clark asked.

“It’s fairly self-explanatory. What do you want, Clark?” Lex asked him. “You were pulled out of your home, set down here. What do you want to do about it?”

“What does it matter to you?” Clark asked him quietly. “I’m not one of your employees, I don’t even belong here.” He fought to keep the anger out of his voice, but it seemed to well up out of him. Lex and Pete just stared at him and didn’t respond. The silence was almost deafening.

“I don’t know what I want,” he exploded finally. “Everything that’s going on and now my mother, am I expected to just…?” he stopped and then went on. “I don’t know what to do because all I want…” he trailed off again, but couldn’t go on. Lex and Pete just looked at him, silently.

Clark stared back at them for a moment and then got up. He took a few steps towards the door and paused. Lex and Pete hadn’t moved to stop him. “I want to go home,” Clark told them in a small voice. “I want to forget this place ever existed. Like it was just all a bad dream.” He looked up at them. “Is that wrong?”

“Maybe it is,” Lex finally said. “But if I were in your shoes, I’d probably be feeling the same thing,” he admitted. “Maybe it’s not so wrong. This isn’t your world; we can’t expect you to care about any of us.”

“But I do,” Clark said sadly.

“And it’s not so easy to get back, is it?” Pete asked.

“That’s another thing. Sorry to say this, but this could be a one way trip,” Lex said frankly.

“Or maybe it’s not,” Pete shot Lex a warning look as he stepped in. “Who knows?”

“Pete’s right,” Lex shrugged. “We can only assume that the Oracle, your mother, brought you here, and no one’s ever been able to say definitely what she can’t do. If she could bring you here, it’s more than possible that she could send you back.” He pursed his lips and pushed a hand through his hair, a gesture Clark found strange coming from Lex. “Of course, there’s a slight hitch in that plan.”

“You’re dad isn’t exactly selling tickets for the trip,” Pete said.

Lex nodded. “She’s in the most secure lab in the most heavily guarded facility in the entire world. And I know that because my father spent two billion making sure it was,” he said, leaning back with a wince. “Without my father there with you, I don’t think anyone could get in.”

“Maybe I could,” Clark said quietly. “I could break in and find her, make her send me home.” He looked up at them and then shook his head and stared down again. “But I can’t, can I?”

“Maybe, but I doubt it,” Lex said. He started to tick things off on his fingers. “You don’t know where the lab is, you don’t know what kind of defenses are there or how to get past them, and you don’t even know where she’s being held. So no, I don’t think your chances would be good.”

“But you know,” Clark said.

Lex smiled and nodded. Then he hesitated and looked at him frankly. “It’s not as simple as that though, is it?”

“No,” Clark said slowly. “I want to go home,” he said again, “but not until I know she’s alright. And the other me. I can’t leave him there.”

“That might not be so wise,” Lex said slowly. “You grew up with parents and a normal life, he hasn’t had that luxury. Just setting him free might not be a good idea.”

“I can’t leave him there,” Clark said forcefully. “And better he’s with us than Luthorcorp.” Lex hesitated and then nodded.

Pete whistled. “Both of them… Not going to be easy.”

“And Lana,” Clark added.

“Try impossible,” Lex snorted. He frowned and leaned forwards towards Clark. “Look, your mother and the other you, if you give them a chance, they’ll come with you I think. But Lana? She likes it there. She might not want to leave.”

“No, Lana, she couldn’t be that way…” Clark said. “I know her, the real her, she wouldn’t…”

“This the same girl that shot at you, and Tina?” Pete asked. Clark winced and looked at Lex imploringly.

“Try to understand, Clark,” he said. “Lana is everything she is because that’s what my father wanted her to be. She’s a fanatic when it comes to him. You can’t just expect her to change her entire life because you’ve got a few memories of how she could have been. It might be too late for her.”

“I know what she’s like now,” Clark told them, “but I have to try. If there’s even a chance…,” he said imploringly. “I have to try.” He looked up at Lex and waited. Lex stared back at him, frowning, and then nodded slowly.

“If we do this carefully,” he said slowly, “and we have a lot of luck, we might be able to get all three. But, remember what I said, she might not stay here willingly.”

Clark smiled and then hesitated, taking a step back. Lex looked at him, surprised. “There’s one other thing,” Clark told him. “If we get my mom out, she doesn’t go to work for you. Or anyone else, ever again.” Pete stood up straight, glancing at Lex in alarm. Lex blinked and looked faintly puzzled.

“You think I want her for my own,” he said quietly. Clark didn’t answer. “If I wanted that, all I would have to do is wait to inherit my father’s company. Even before that, all I would have to do is prove myself to him, be the son he wants me to be. But you don’t see me doing that, do you?”

“Then what do you get out of this?” Clark asked him.

“I want to salt the earth over the Luthor name; everything he has, everything he’s ever lied for, blackmailed to get, cheated someone out of. I want to tear it all down.” Lex ran his hands over the surface of the desk, breathing deeply. “I know better than anyone that my father’s a monster. I’ve had to be a monster to get close to him.” He glared up at Clark, his blood-shot eyes gleaming. “I want that all to stop,” he said with finality.

“I want to stop living in this dump,” Pete spoke up. He leaned back against the wall, staring at both of them. His sounded weary, but determined. “I’m tired of seeing people around me go hungry or live on the street. I’m tired of the fact that the only way you can get ahead in this town is if you sell out.” He almost spat the words out. “I want this town to be better, the way it used to be.” Clark looked at him and then nodded. So did Lex.

“So, Lana, your ‘brother’, and Mrs. Kent in exchange for bring down my father and putting the town right again,” Lex said. “Not too much of an order, “ he said dryly.

“Can we do it?” Clark asked him seriously.

Lex shrugged and smiled one-sidedly. “I don’t know, but we’re sure as hell going to try.”