“I really need more time to do this,” the doctor protested. He gestured to Clark, lying unconscious on the bed. “First you tell me he just collapsed and to figure out what’s wrong. Then I can’t get a needle through his skin to draw some blood. Now you keep telling me to hurry up. How am I supposed to work like this?”

Pete cocked his gun and pointed it at the doctor as Lex leaned towards him on his crutches and smiled. “Very quickly, I’d imagine,” he said dryly.

“Right. Well. Let’s… Let’s see,” the doctor stammered as he turned back to Clark.

“What’s wrong with him?” Chloe spoke up. She was standing in the doorway nervously, not eager to enter in. “Is he hurt?”

“Yes, but nothing major, I think. He has some cuts and bruises, there looks to be a bit of internal bleeding, but I can’t be certain.” The doctor shrugged. “I think he’s just exhausted, but I’m not sure,” he apologized. “Aside from just letting him rest, I can’t think of anything else you can do.”

“Guess he’s been through a lot,” Pete said.

“Let him sleep,” Lex nodded. “He’s earned it.”

“What about her?” Pete nodded at Clark’s mother, who was lying on the other hospital bed. The only sign of life she showed was the tiny, slow beep from the heart machine hooked up to her. Lex glanced at her and shrugged.

“My father’s doctors had years to make heads or tails of her and they still couldn’t do it. There’s nothing we can do to help her.”

Pete looked at her for a moment and nodded slowly. The he glanced at the doctor. “So we don’t need him anymore?” The doctor gulped and backed up nervously, almost upsetting a tray in the process.

“I’m glad you still have the ability to joke after all of this,” Lex said dryly to Pete.

“Well, I’m not the one with a broken leg.”

Lex rolled his eyes and motioned towards the door. Pete smirked and grabbed the man by the collar, pushing him out of the room. “Come’on Doc, I’m sure we can find a few more people in need of a house call,” he said, giving him a kick out the door. He stopped in the doorway by Chloe and touched her shoulder.

“You going to be alright?”

“I’m fine,” she said quietly.

“Liar, but you’re tough, you will be. I’ll check up on you later.” He gave the doctor another shove and followed him down the hall.

Chloe smiled at him as he left. Then she entered the room slowly, looking at Clark. He was lying on the bed, sleeping, but not soundly. He twitched roughly as he lay there, his face in pain. “Is he dreaming, do you think?” she asked.

Lex grunted in pain as he maneuvered his body into a chair against the wall. He hade a plastic and metal cast strapped on his broken leg and hadn’t quite gotten the hang of it yet. “If he is, it doesn’t look like a good one.” He sighed as he moved his leg slightly. “Let him rest, he’ll be fine in the morning. The sun will be up; that’ll cure him.” He let out another moan and then settled back into the chair. “That’s something we found out through experience; sunlight seems to be what gives them their powers. They store it in, like a battery. Still don’t understand it fully myself.”

“So he’ll be fine?”

“He should be.”

“Joseph too?” she asked.

“I think it’s going to take a lot more than sunlight to cure Joseph,” Lex remarked. “Speaking of which, where did he disappear to?”

“Upstairs, somewhere,” Chloe shrugged.

Lex leaned forwards a bit nervously. “Pete evacuated those floors right?”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m not asking for his benefit, Chloe. You better make sure.”

Chloe turned around and looked at him. “Do you think he’d hurt anyone?”

Lex sighed again and leaned his head back against the wall. His eyes were dull and tired and his skin looked gray. The strain of the past night and his broken leg was clearly getting to him. “He’s been caged up all his life; he’s probably met more people in the last few hours than he’s ever seen in his life. This has got to be hard on him.”

“You didn’t answer my question,” she pointed out.

“You want to know the truth: I don’t know. He could, he has a history of it and he’s not that fond of any of us right now. Will he?” He shrugged. “I don’t think so. I hope not at least.”

“They’re so different,” Chloe said quietly. She touched Clark’s arm and he flinched in his sleep. “So very different.”

“I hope they’re not. I pray they’re not, or we might have made a very big mistake by letting him out.”

“Lex, can you tell me something?” Chloe asked. “Did my father know? About him? When he worked for Luthorcorp, was he in on all of this?”

“You’re asking if he knew about Joseph.” He shifted in his chair and avoided her eyes. “Why do you want to know?” She stared at him quietly and didn’t answer. Finally, he let out a long breath and looked at her sadly. “Lana told you, didn’t she? She’s the only one who could have.”

“You weren’t going to tell me?” she asked, swallowing a dry lump in her throat.

“I would have eventually. Not right now, but eventually.”

“Did he know about him? Lex, please.”

“What does it matter? It doesn’t change anything.”

“Please,” she protested.

He hesitated and then shook his head. “Back then, there were a lot of different divisions inside the lab. Your father was assigned to one of those. There were rumors about what we were doing, but we kept a tight lid on things. Your father didn’t know what was going on.”

Chloe let out a breath, unsure of whether that was answer she’d wanted or not. “Wrong place, wrong time,” she said quietly and Lex nodded.

This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.

“Yes, it was. After the escape, that’s when we moved the other divisions out. Too risky.” He looked at her worriedly. “Look, it might be better if you forgot about that; it’s not a good idea to think about it too much.”

“He killed my father, Lex,” she reminded him testily. “I’m just supposed to forget about it?”

“No, I didn’t mean that. Just we’ve all been through a lot right now. You should get some rest. We’ll deal with that later.”

“How are we going to deal with it?” she asked doggedly.

He sank back into his chair and rubbed his forehead tiredly. “I don’t know. We’ll figure something out. I promise.”

“If he goes crazy, what are we going to do with him?” she asked. He looked at her helplessly. “You have a plan right? You always have a plan. That’s what you do.”

“You can’t plan everything out, some things you just have to leave to chance. Or hope,” he added, a grim smile floating across his face. “Maybe we don’t have to worry,” he shrugged. “Maybe we can help him understand us. It’s going to take time though. You can’t expect him to change overnight.”

“But he still killed… them,” she said, swallowing dryly. “It doesn’t change that.” Lex looked at her helplessly, at a loss for words. “I’m going to check on Tina,” Chloe said abruptly and started to leave. Lex pushed himself up from the chair worriedly, calling to her.

“Chloe, I’m serious! We’ll deal with this later. We can’t do anything right now!”

“Yeah, yeah, I know,” she said without turning around. “I just need to be alone, I guess.” She rubbed her arms lightly and looked back at him. “You going to be alright here?”

He glanced at the chair against the wall and made a wry face. “I’ve slept in better. You better get some sleep too.”

Chloe nodded briefly and left the room, closing the door slowly behind her. Her feelings were a jumble in her stomach, rolling and churning uncertainly. She didn’t know what to do, or even where to go. Aimlessly, she wandered around the hospital, glancing into rooms and down hallways. All she knew was that she wanted was to be alone for a while, but everywhere she looked she saw Pete’s people gathered around the windows, watching for trouble. Chloe shuddered as she looked at them, feeling the walls close in around her. The whole mood of the hospital was like a fortress; everywhere she looked she saw strained and nervous faces. More upset than ever, her steps took up upstairs, to the abandoned top floors.

What was she going to do, she wondered as she climbed the stairs. She’d never been that close to her father, even after her mother had left them. It must have been tough for him, and she hadn’t made it any easier. Maybe she had resented it and had taken everything she’d been feeling out on him. Every time he had tried to reach out to her, she had stepped back, until eventually, both of them had stopped trying, and had just avoided each other. She stopped; realizing how little she remembered of him after her mother had left. Maybe things would have been different if someone could have told her that one day he’d go out the door and never come back. Maybe…

Suddenly she was sobbing uncontrollably. It came ripping out of her chest, making her drop to her knees and bawl into her arms, her eyes screwed up against the rush of it all. Her cries echoed through the empty hallway. She’d never spared her father a single tear before and maybe this was simply her way of getting it all out at once.

When she’d cried herself out, Chloe sat back against the stairwell, cradling her knees to her chest. After a moment, she felt herself sitting on something uncomfortable and she pulled out Clark’s wallet. She’d completely forgotten he’d given it to her. She opened it up gingerly, staring at his student id and picture. Then slowly, she unfolded the photo tucked inside it. There they were, Clark, Pete, herself, and even Lana, but they weren’t. It was the people Clark knew, his friends. The people he had left behind a world away.

She got to her feet and climbed to the next floor. There, she found the nearest bathroom and went inside, flicking on the light. Then she leaned close to the mirror and held up the picture. When she’d first seen the photo, all she could see were the similarities, now all she saw were the differences.

The Chloe in the photo was young and fresh-faced, her skin gleaming. She looked happy, excited to be there with her friends. Her arms were draped around Pete and Clark’s neck, a grin stretched from ear to ear. Chloe looked into the mirror and saw the weathered girl staring back at her. Her eyes were bloodshot and dim. Her skin was dirty and smudged, and there were a line or two that weren’t there in the photo. Lack of sleep or just too much living, she didn’t know which was the cause. The lines seemed so deep to her. She dropped her gaze and stared into the sink. Clark had told her about herself, albeit grudgingly, but she had heard the glow in his voice as he’d done it. Maybe that was when she’d first started to fall for him, she thought to herself. She’d felt warm hearing that voice and the way it had talked about her. Maybe she’d almost felt like that girl. Now she felt broken and jaded. She rubbed her shoulders and glanced again at the mirror. Then she folded up the photo and tucked it away. She couldn’t bear to look at it anymore.

As she exited the room, she heard a television playing loudly somewhere down the hall. She went searching and found it eventually. The door was open, but the lights were off in the room. The only illumination was the glow from the TV screen inside. She peered inside quietly.

Joseph was lying on the floor inside, wrapped up in a makeshift nest of pillows, mattresses, and blankets. The stripped remains of four beds were piled in the corner of the room. He had apparently found a room to his liking and claimed it. He had even pulled the TV off its perch on the wall and was staring at it, completely engrossed. He didn’t even seem to realize she was there. He held the remote control inexpertly, changing the channels every few seconds randomly. Chloe stood in the doorway, watching him. He seemed completely absorbed in it.

As quietly as she could, she reached behind her and pulled out the gun she’d stolen from LuthorCorp. It was heavy in her hands, but she held it steadily as she aimed it at his head. He was only a few yards away and his back was too her. He still hadn’t noticed she was there. She wondered idly to herself what would happen if he turned around now. He’d probably kill her dead in a second. She couldn’t fool herself into thinking she’d get any mercy from him. The TV boomed loudly as she stared at him from over the gun barrel.

Chloe’s eyes strayed downwards a bit and she saw that his shirt had pulled up slightly on his back, revealing a patchwork mess of scars and suture marks across his skin. The lines went deep across his skin, so deep. After a moment she lowered the gun silently and tiptoed away.

Chloe walked down the hallway to a nurse’s station. She leaned against the counter, thinking to herself. Then she walked around it and found a medical waste bin and opened it quietly. She held the gun up once more, feeling the weight in her hand. Her other hand crept up to her face and rubbed her skin tentatively. “If I had to choose,” she whispered to herself, “I’d be her. In a heartbeat.” She turned her hand over and let the gun fall into the bin. It lay there among the other needles and poisons. She shut the lid quietly and wandered back to Joseph’s room. There was a bench pressed against the wall outside his door. Curling up on it, she listened to the TV quietly until she fell to sleep.

Chloe came awake slowly, becoming aware of several voices speaking quietly somewhere nearby. “Where are they now?” someone was saying. She dimly thought it might have been Lex. Pushing herself up, she winced as half a dozen muscles in her body sang out. That was what she got for sleeping on a bench, she thought groggily. Rubbing her back, she got up, blinking to clear her eyes. She could see from the clock on the wall that it was still a few hours before dawn. She groaned and started to fall back onto the bench, but then she saw Tina come round the corner of the hallway and head towards her.

“There you are,” she said quietly, her face subdued. Her voice was so even it was a little unnatural, never wavering. “Lex sent me to find you.”

“Tina,” Chloe said sleepily, still clearing her eyes. “What is it?”

Tina hummed noncommittally and looked around. “Where’s Joseph?”

“Still asleep, I guess.” She pointed towards his room and Tina turned towards it. “Wait, are you okay? You know, about…”

“I’m dealing with it,” Tina said curtly, but then she went on in that same even tone. “We need both of you. Something’s happening.”

“Something? Is Clark awake?”

“No, I’m afraid not,” she said, stepping into Joseph’s room. Chloe followed after her, rubbing the last of the sleep out of her eyes.

Joseph was curled around the TV, his arms wrapped around it as it blared static loudly. The blankets and mattresses were strewn around him a pile. One of his legs kicked reflexively as he lay there, apparently dead to the world. Chloe took one look at him and snorted loudly. “Leave him sleep; it’s the only way anyone can stand him.”

“Lex said both of you,” Tina said again quietly. She bent down and touched one of his legs lightly. Joseph jerked awake like a dog that had been kicked, scrambling away on all fours. He glared at both of them suspiciously.

“What?” he croaked.

“Lex wants you to come with me,” Tina told him evenly. “He has something you need to see.”

“What? Why?” He was clearly having a hard time processing this right away.

Chloe rolled her eyes and leaned against the door. “You’re using too many big words for him. Just snap your fingers and say ‘Come.’”

Tina ignored her. “Joseph, what do you hear right now?” He stared at her in confusion and then his eye narrowed as he concentrated. Suddenly his face unclouded and he stood up swiftly.

“Where is he?’ he asked.

Tina got up in response and motioned for him to follow after her. “You’ll see it easier on the other side of the building,” she told him. Chloe blinked and tagged along after the two of them as they left the room in a hurry.

“What? What do you hear?” she asked.

“I can’t tell,” he said tersely.

“What do you mean, you can’t tell? You don’t know?”

“No, I mean I can’t tell you. Too many big words.”

Chloe stopped dead for a moment, shocked, and then hurried to catch up. “You just shot back at me. Where did you learn how to do that?”

A smile floated across his harsh face for a moment. “Cable,” he told laconically. Chloe looked at him strangely, unaccustomed to ever seeing him smile. He seemed even more unaccustomed to doing it. Then as swiftly as it had appeared, the smile vanished and he was back to his usual self, ignoring her from then on.

They found Lex and Pete in another room on the opposite side of the building. They were staring out an open window and had been apparently discussing something until the three of them entered, at which point they stopped abruptly. “Joseph, I was hoping you would be able to-“

“Where are they?” Joseph cut him off as he rushed to the window. He stared out, craning his head around. “I can’t see them yet,” he said angrily.

“I take it there’s no need to explain then,” Lex said dryly, turning back to the window.

“How about a little help for those of us who don’t pick up conversations in the next state?” Chloe spoke up. “What’s going on?”

“You’ll know in a minute,” Pete told her quietly.

“Not even that long,” Tina said in that same even tone as she looked out another window. “Here they come.”

Chloe opened her mouth to speak, but then she noticed for the first time that she could hear a low rumble coming from outside. It was steadily growing larger, very quickly growing larger, she realized. Going to a window, she stared out, but at first she couldn’t see anything. The parking lot and road to the hospital were both deserted in the few hours left before dawn. The rumble continued to grow and she waited, watching silently. Then from over a hill a tank rolled into view, and then another, and another. They dotted the landscape, appearing from behind houses and buildings and taking positions around the hospital. Jeeps and troop carriers appeared behind them and Chloe looked up suddenly as a trio of helicopters roared over the hospital and circled around again.

“We got the call about twenty minutes ago from someone still on the outside,” Pete stated. “They said there’s even more of them town; they’ve blocked off all the streets. Smallville’s under martial law.”

“Who are they?” Tina asked, hardly sounding concerned at all about things. “Still more from your father?”

“No, these aren’t my father’s,” Lex disagreed quietly. “United States Army.”

“Army?” Chloe said, thunderstruck. For a moment, she was horrified, but then something occurred to her and she really became horrified. “Wait, that means that my uncle…”

“Yes, that probably means he’s the one in charge of it all,” Lex nodded. “And it looks like he’s got us surrounded.”