Chloe and Lex found some strips of cloth and managed to bandage off Pete’s leg in time. He was very weak and unsteady, but he stood with Tina’s help. She had come forwards to support him without being asked to. No one had said anything to her just yet, perhaps unsure of what to say. She stood there with her head bowed and Pete’s arm over her shoulders, not looking at anyone.

Joseph was sitting in the corner, his head also bowed. No one had spoken to him either. It was silent for a long time as they all stood there, looking at Clark. He hadn’t moved from the doorway and was still gazing in on his mother’s room. Finally, Lex cleared his throat.

“I guess it’s time,” he said somberly. Clark glanced back and nodded. He turned to look at them, his face tired and drawn, and also sad. They seemed to feel no different than he did.

Clark looked at Pete first, his eyes going towards his wounded leg. Pete shrugged. “I’ll be fine,” he said, his voice a little weak. “You know, I’ve been doing this before you came here. It’s not the first time I’ve been shot.” Clark smiled and looked at Tina. He started to say something, but she flinched away from him. Pete shook his head. “We’ll help her,” he promised. “She won’t be alone.” His hand tightened over her shoulder as he said it, which made Clark feel hopeful.

Moving away from them, he looked at Lex, who gave him a wry smile. “Well, you torched my father’s company, destroyed everything the Luthor name represented, and helped make me a wanted man,” he stated. Then he thrust out his hand. “Thank you, Clark.”

Clark ignored his hand and instead pulled Lex into a hug. Lex seemed surprised, but then grinned and hugged him back. “What are you going to do now?” Clark asked him.

Lex shrugged and smiled. “You know what; I don’t have the slightest idea. And you don’t know how relieved that makes me feel.”

He smiled at him. “Why don’t you try and make the Luthor name mean something else?” he suggested. Lex laughed with him for a moment.

“Are you also going to keep that look?” Clark smiled, glancing at his shaved head. Lex made an amused face as he rubbed his head with one hand.

“Maybe, I will. I like it.” Clark shook his head and laughed again.

He stopped laughing as he looked down at his brother though. Joseph kept his head down, and didn’t return his gaze. “Do you know why she brought me here?” Clark asked him finally. Joseph didn’t answer. Lowering himself to his knees, Clark looked at his brother and waited.

“Why?” he responded at last.

“She brought me here to save you. She didn’t care what happened to herself, but she wanted you to be safe. And happy. She didn’t want you to become a monster.”

Joseph’s voice was a whisper. “Why did she care?”

Before he could react, Clark reached over and touched his hand. Joseph started to flinch away instinctually, but he stopped as warmth, not pain rushed over him. Somehow, Clark reached through his mind and found all the loving thoughts and memories he had of his family and friends, and he reached across their bond to share them with Joseph. Wonder slowly crept across his face as he experienced them for the first time. It was no different for Clark as he looked at them again with new eyes.

“Do you remember the gift the Tin Man asked for?” Clark asked his brother quietly. “I can’t give it to you, but I can share a little of mine with you.” Tenderly, he let go and stood up. Joseph was still staring off into the distance, his expression awed. “I hope it’s enough.”

“If that makes me the Scarecrow you’ve got another thing coming,” Chloe said behind him. “And if you call me the Cowardly Lion, I’ll kick your ass.” She was trying to make her voice sound tough and confident, and was failing miserably. Clark looked at her and saw that she was near to tears.

“Chloe, I…” he tried to say, but she rushed into his arms before he could finish. She kissed him long and passionately, seeming to let everything she had felt for him rush out of her. Clark kissed her back just as soundly. Only when she pulled back and brushed at his face did he realize that he was crying as well.

“We’ve done this before,” she laughed, still choked up. “And it’s going to end up the same way, huh?” He couldn’t say yes, but she saw it in his face. She looked away with a pained smile. “Boy, you really changed me, didn’t you? Too bad there’s not a character that got a conscience, huh?”

“You always had one,” he told her.

“Yeah, but I never really listened to it.” She looked at him sadly and closed her eyes for a moment. “I’ll miss you,” she said simply.

“I’ll never forget any of you,” he said, looking at each of them again.

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“If you’re ever here again,” Lex started and then nodded to himself, “I’ll know something is very wrong.”

“I know what you’re trying to say,” Clark told him. He looked at Chloe one final time and then he turned back towards the doorway. He took a breath and stepped through it.

Behind him, Chloe took a tentative few steps towards the door, but Lex took her hand and shook his head.

His mother was watching him as he entered. Her eyes were warm and pleased. He went to her side and looked back at her, but a little conflicted. He glanced behind him and then asked, “Will they be okay? All of them?”

“Even I don’t know that,” she said quietly. “You changed much by coming here, whether for the good or worse, I can’t say, but I can say that they are better.”

He nodded, feeling a little better. “And Lana?”

“She still needs your help,” his mother told him. Her voice was very weak, little more than a whisper, but the hand that enclosed over his own was firm enough. He looked into her eyes as felt some great power flowing over them both. His mother looked back at him and whispered, “I am very proud of you, my son.” Then, with those words still lingering in his ears, he was gone.

The door opened slowly, and Lex looked in. Clark’s mother lay on the gurney alone. Her hand hung limply over the edge. Lex sighed as he looked at her. She was gone. Somberly, they all entered in to look at her, Joseph coming last. He stared at her quietly, his one eye sad and confused. Then before anyone could stop him, he crossed over to her side and touched her face gently. Then he tenderly closed her eyes and picked her up. She hung loosely in his arms as he walked towards the door. Then with the air of a funeral cortege, everyone followed after him.

Clark opened his eyes slowly and he was home. Somehow, he knew that instinctually. He could feel it in the air just as sure as he could hear the echoes of his mother’s last words to him. He turned around and saw that it was still night, wherever he was, not long before morning. The eastern edge of the sky was touched with dim, golden light. As he swept the sky, he saw a familiar tree line and when he turned around, he wasn’t surprised by what else he saw.

He was standing just outside the gate to the Smallville Cemetery. Graves and monuments traced out rows in the misty pre-morning. He stood still for a moment, staring at the iron gates, and then he heard a moaning sob drift through the gravestones. Running as fast as he could, he followed it, and again, he wasn’t surprised to where it took him. He had visited this cemetery many times, and most of his visits had been to the set of graves he found himself in front of.

Lana was kneeling before the graves of her parents, groaning with despair. Her hand was still clenched around the gun she’d carried over with her. Clark watched her trying to stay silent, but somehow, or maybe through some instinct drilled into her, Lana spun around, staring at him.

Her eyes were red and hopeless looking, her uniform was torn and dirty. She seemed like such a desperate thing, so utterly alone. He looked at her quietly as she trained the gun on him.

“This is your world, isn’t it?” she asked her voice agonized. He nodded. “She sent me here,” Lana moaned. “Of all the places, why did she send me here?”

“I don’t know,” he said truthfully. “It was up to her.”

“She could have sent me to somewhere where my parents hadn’t died!” she screamed at him, still holding the gun towards him, perhaps even knowing what a pointless thing it was to do. “Somewhere I was dead. I could have just stepped in then, it would have all been so perfect.”

“She could have,” he said quietly.

“Why didn’t she?!” Lana yelled. “Why didn’t she? I could have been happy!”

“Maybe because that wouldn’t be your life. That would just be a lie, some other Lana’s life. You already have yours.”

“What if I don’t want mine?” she asked dreadfully. “I’ve killed people. I’ve done terrible things.”

“At first I thought it was all for something, all the suffering,” she trembled. She winced and touched her temples. “All of it, I went through so much… for something. I don’t remember what it was. Everyone tried to convince me, the doctors and soldiers, even him, but I can’t remember. Maybe it was for nothing at all.” She stopped and stared at him. “I wanted to help people, to make things better. For them, for me. But I haven’t. I’ve just made everything worse. I’m worse.” She was still for a moment, her agony plain on her face. “I don’t want to be this way.” Slowly she brought the gun up and put it to her head, her eyes locked hopelessly on his.

Her finger was wrapped tightly around the trigger. If he took a step towards her, he was sure that she would fire. “Lana, don’t. Please.”

“No!” she warned him in a shaking voice. “Don’t do that. Don’t do that. I killed your friend. You shouldn’t say that.”

“You can’t do this to yourself,” he pleaded with her.

“Why shouldn’t I?”

He looked at her and then looked down at his feet. When he looked up, he stared straight into her eyes. “Because if you kill yourself I might as well follow straight after you.”

“I’ve seen a lot of things in the past few days,” he said quietly. “I’ve learned a lot of things. I’ve seen another world where people I thought I knew were different, different because of… I don’t know. Maybe because of me, maybe because of fate, or just chance.” He stared into her eyes. “Not all of those people were nice. I wasn’t nice, the me on the other side. And it made me realize something; I could have been like that, very easily. I could have been just like him, and that terrifies me.”

“It made me think, why are we who we are? Is it fate, is it someone or something who decides for us. Is it just chance? Is who we are just decided by random events? A butterfly flaps its wings and instead of a saint, you get a murderer?” He shook his head. “If that’s true, if that’s how the world works, then I can’t believe it. I reject it.”

“I think we decide for ourselves, that we have that power. Maybe we can’t change what happens around us, but at least maybe we can change. We can change; we have to be able to change,” he repeated. “I have to believe that, or I might as well give up now.” He looked at her sadly. “I have to be able to believe that my brother can change. I have to believe he can be better. And so I have to believe that you can change too.”

“No,” she stammered. The hand holding the gun started to shake as she stared at him.

“You have to change, Lana. I have to believe that you can, because if I can’t then there’s no hope for my brother, or for any of us in the long run.”

“No, no. Don’t ask me that. Please, don’t,” she stammered at him.

“You have to show me that there’s hope, Lana. Only you can do show me that. I need to know that we can change. Please.”

Her face was deathly pale as she stared at him. “I can’t. Please, that’s too hard. You can’t ask that.”

“I never said it would be easy,” he told her. “And maybe you don’t deserve easy. I know it won’t be easy, I know it will be painful, but you’re just going to have to do it. You owe it to me, to Whitney, to everyone you hurt before. Killing yourself won’t make anything better.”

Lana’s hand shook as she held up the gun. “Why are you doing this to me?” she asked. “Why can’t you just leave me alone? I did nothing but try and hurt you and your friends. Why are you still here?”

Clark blinked and looked at her. “You’ve been alone all your life, you want to be alone even now?” She stared at him. “And I won’t abandon the people I love, Lana. I’ll help you. I’ll be there for you.”

“No!” she yelled and backed away. Her face was deathly white and she seemed to be having trouble breathing. “I can’t think, stop this. Get away from me!”

“You’re life isn’t decided for you, Lana. Who you are isn’t set in stone. You can change it, I know you can!”

“No, this is too much! Get away from me!” She took another step back and hit her parents’ gravestones. The gun was still pressed against the side of her head.

“Lana, my mother wanted me to save someone along with my brother. I think that person is you. Please, Lana. Show me. Show me that you can.” He put out his hand slowly and waited. He could have taken the gun away from her at any time, but he knew that deep down, she had to decide for herself. He couldn’t be there to save her everyday. She stared back at him, her face nearly overcome. For a frozen, unspoken moment, there was complete silence, and then with a sob, Lana fell to her knees, the gun tumbling out of her hand. Clark stepped forwards and caught her as she sobbed out all the anguish and hate left in her. Behind both of them, the mist started to disperse as the first rays of the new day started to shine though.