... Alien in Metropolis (SV XO UC, Teen) Pt 4/4 Feb 12 2011

[Chrisken]

Title: A New Mexican Alien in Metropolis
Disclaimer: I don't own the rights to Roswell or anybody to do Smallville. This story is a not for profit fandom venture, and all rights remain with Fox/Warner Brothers/DC Comics.
Rating: Teen for now, can't be sure if that might edge up into Mature in later parts.
Pairings: References to Maria/Oliver, and looks like it's heading into possible Michael/Lana country! (I didn't entirely plan that one.)
Summary: After hearing that Maria is staying in Metropolis and dating some guy named Oliver Queen, Michael goes to the big city to try and figure out what's really going on, but he has no idea what he's getting into.
Author's note: This is currently my third Roswell crossover on the go, which is some kind of record for me. It's a sequel to 'Arrow through my Soul', which tells the story about Maria and Oliver: you can find that story here - http://www.roswellfanatics.net/viewtopi ... 40&t=20817

I didn't pay attention to the girl with the short blonde hair at first, when I bumped into her just outside of Oliver Queen's offices in the Queen Industries building. I was too focused on what I was in the middle of. Tried the handle of the door that she had just let close behind her - it wouldn't turn and it wouldn't pull or push open. From a quick examination of the lock, she must have deliberately activated the spring-lock while she had the door open. I automatically looked around to see if anybody would notice me exerting my powers, and realized that the girl was staring curiously at me, as if wondering what business I thought I had with Oliver Queen.

Dammit. If I couldn't scare her off somehow, I had no idea how I was going to be able to slip in unnoticed. "Who the hell are you?" I barked as intimidatingly as I could manage. "You don't seem to be wearing company dress code. Are you Missus Queen or something?" I have no idea why I asked her that, it was just the first thing that occurred to me - which is usually where I get into trouble, but this didn't seem to be a situation where I could stop to think things through either.

The girl blinked in surprise at that guess. "As in, Oliver's wife? Umm - hardly. Leaving aside the fact that - well, no, I won't get into all the reasons why. No I'm just a close friend of Mister Queen's, and what business is it of yours?"

"A friend, huh? Well, maybe you can help me out - I need to get in to see the bastard." What the hell, why not try and keep provoking her, anything that she wouldn't expect?

This time, the blonde couldn't entirely cover an amused giggle. "I'm certainly not in the habit of helping people who call my good friends names to get past security."

"Fine, then I'll get inside without your help!" I blurted out.

"And just how do you think you'll manage that?" the girl asked. I shrugged, feeling foolish about how much of my hand I'd tipped. She made a show of checking her watch. "In any event, I don't think it'll help you much. Mister Queen is on his way out of the building."

I looked up at the door that she had come through. "The hell?"

"He has a private express elevator down to the parking garage," she pointed out, sounding very pleased to be able to drop that tidbit. I turned and started to hurry back towards the elevator lobby. "You're not going to be able to catch up to him now, so why not stay and talk a bit longer with me? I do have the ear of the big man, after all. Whatever you need to see a busy man like Oliver Queen about, I might be able to help you get your appointment."

I turned back and glared at her. "You just want to find out what kind of trouble Queen is in, and see if you can get rid of me for good."

"Well, I can't deny that I'm curious," the girl admitted. "On the other hand, if you don't want to talk to me, then I do have other things to do today." She headed past me towards the lobby herself, but kept watching me out of the corner of her eye - this was a tactic to draw me out, and she wasn't sure how well it would play out.

Turns out, it worked rather well. "Sonuvvabitch stole my fiancee!" I blurted out, tailing along behind her. "Or ex-girlfriend, or whatever, it's complicated. I - I didn't come here to hurt him, really I didn't. Just wanted to look 'Ollie' in the eyes, see what I thought of him, and if he was the kind of guy who I could even tell..."

"Wait a second!" Abandoning her course towards the elevators, blondie scanned the nearby hallway doors. made a decision, and pulled me into one of them. A few seconds later, we were alone in a small office supples closet. "You're Michael??"

"Well, yes," I said, taking a moment to absorb the fact that she'd been able to guess my name. "Who are you, anyway? Do you know Maria too?"

"I - well, I've met her a few times now," she admitted. "And Oliver's told me some of her story, including the ex-fiance who she left behind in New Mexico. My name's Chloe, by the way." Chloe shook her head. "How do you know about Oliver, though? I mean, Maria and Oliver?? I thought that she couldn't communicate back to..." She broke off secretively, and I realized she wasn't sure how much she should say, even in this private-seeming place.

"She sent a note through to a few friends and I," I muttered. "Via one of her new fans."

"Ahh, I see," Chloe muttered. "I wonder if Maria thought of that trick herself, or if Ollie suggested it - but that can get filed under 'never mind.' Did this note say that you shouldn't come to Metropolis, that it was dangerous?"

"She said that I shouldn't try to meet with her, that she was being watched," I argued back. "The whole city - well, not in so many words, and anyway - you should know that I'm not wild about letting other people decide my risk management strategy."

Chloe rolled her eyes dramatically. "Meaning that you're too stubborn to let anybody else tell you the smart thing to do, huh?" She sighed. "Well, if you're bound and determined to meet with Oliver before leaving town, I might be able to arrange that, but this is not the right way. Tess Mercer probably doesn't have any outright spies in Queen Industries, but word about disruptive visitors might get around."

"Tess?" It took a moment before I realized that this was some very different person than the Tess I knew. "I wasn't *trying* to cause a scene," I mumbled. Really, I hadn't been, until Chloe got into the wrong place at the wrong time.

"Do you have a place to stay here in the city?" Chloe asked me, and the question confused me for a moment. "Hotel room, hostel, crashing on the couch of an acquaintance?"

"Yeah, I was just wondering why you asked," I told her. Chloe just kept looking at me, refusing to explain. "I'm booked into the Red Carpet motel on Brantford avenue. Should be able to hold out there for a few days with available funds - and then I'll figure out my next move. But that's not going to be heading back to Roswell before my business here is done."

"Yeah, yeah, I believe you," Chloe insisted. "Well - that's not my favorite neighborhood, but the Golden age cafe is three blocks away from your motel - or maybe four. Do you think you can find it?"

"Not hard, since I clearly remember walking by it last night," I shot back. "And I have an excellent sense of direction."

"A man of many talents, indeed," Chloe chuckled to herself. "Okay, I'll meet you there at quarter to four this afternoon. Oliver probably won't be easy to track down anytime soon, and I've got a busy day myself, but there should be news for you by then."

I stared at her face, realizing irrelevantly that it actually did look 'freshly scrubbed' - the first time that's ever occured to me when I looked at a girl. "What kind of news?"

"About whether or not Mister Queen will meet with you in person, and if so, where and when," Chloe said, with a good 'wasn't that obvious?' tone of voice.

"Oh." I wasn't too pleased with the way the conversation was going now. "If his decision is 'not,' then..."

"I understand, you're not about to give up," Chloe agreed. "I can't commit Oliver to something like this, but my suggestion will be that he should go ahead, if only to get it over with because he isn't going to be able to get rid of you more easily another way." She chuckled softly. "The psychology should work."

"Alright." I sighed and turned towards the door of the supply room. "So what do I do until later this afternoon?"

"Well, there's always the hop-on, hop-off bus tour," Chloe suggested. I glared angrily at her. "Not a bus fan? Well, 'The Seafarer' is playing down on Orion street, it's supposed to be great. I never manage to find time to go out to see a play myself. Or there's always the riverboat cruise." I realized that I was tapping my foot and softly snorting in disgust. "Lest you miss the point I'm making, Michael Guerin - do whatever you'd do if you were visiting Metropolis by yourself and you didn't have this specific agenda. And - I won't say for sure, but somebody may be watching you. Be careful."

"Thanks," I said. "Don't worry about me. I know how to act normal and blend in with the crowd. Should even work on the big-city crowds around here."

And with that line, I slipped out and made my way back to the elevators, not looking back at Chloe whatever-her-name-might-be.

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

I knew that I wasn't any good at playing tourist.

It was hard for me to act as if I hadn't come to Metropolis to meet Oliver Queen, because if it hadn't been for that mission I really couldn't imagine what could have brought me to the Big Apricot - at least, not on my own like this. Maria might have dragged me along on some trip together - that was the way it should have been, maybe - or Isabel perhaps, but otherwise... I just couldn't even figure out what I was supposed to do. Museums, restaurants - even the Riverside Casino didn't hold my attention for long, not after Vegas. Then again, the fact that I didn't have much money to spend was a consideration nearly anywhere. If my pockets had been flush, I could probably have found some way to distract myself and buy a good time.

I ended up waiting at the cafe for my appointment with Oliver's 'friend' nearly an hour early, just because I couldn't think of anywhere else to go. As I sat out on the patio with my iced cappucino around ten minutes to five o'clock, a commotion started half a block down the sidewalk, and I ended up going over to find out what was going on. It didn't turn out to be anything very interesting - some old pedestrian had had a minor medical emergency - there were conflicting explanations offered, from a broken hip to a heart attack, but the ambulance was on the scene only a few seconds after I walked near, and the paramedics drove the guy off towards the hospital in good time. I hoped that he would be okay, whatever had happened.

As I watched the rest of the crowd disperse and decided to go back to his own coffee, a man in an official blue uniform hurried down the sidewalk in my direction. I was so surprised that an paramedic on the scene would be leaving on foot, and not in an official vehicle of any kind, that I was slow in getting out of the way, and the other man hardly even seemed to see me until after we bumped into each other.

As my hand touched the paramedic's, I felt a trace of alien power discharge and cursed under my breath. I'd been trying so hard to keep my abilities under control, despite all of the stress of this situation with Maria and Queen. The last thing I needed was for somebody in Metropolis notice something suspicious. But - well, there was really no help for it now, and probably it wouldn't be so bad. At least I was a stranger here, and maybe the other guy wouldn't even pay attention to the momentary flash or whatever else he experienced.

But the tall, imposing man turned towards me incredulously and hissed in a horrible kind of a whisper. "I... I know that touch somehow. You're Antarian!"

I immediately felt a surge of hot rage and fear wash through me, and struggled to keep them both bottled up. Getting into a shouting match, or worse, with this character on the sidewalk would not do anybody any good. Part of me wanted to walk away, to lose the ambulance man if I had to, but finding out more details could be important.

"Not many people know about Antarians," I whispered back as pleasantly as I could manage. "Do you want to, umm, to go sit down and have a cuppa?"

"What, like we're on that ridiculous sitcom and hanging out at Central Perk?" the paramedic snapped. "I'm not your friend."

I stared at him for a moment, trying to figure out my next move, and then gave up. "Alright. Goodbye, whoever you are." Making sure to stay well out of the way of the paremedic, I circled around to walk away.

"Sorry, I didn't mean to be such a - well, an ass," the paramedic said, but I didn't stop walking immediately. "It's been a rough day for me, and I think I'll be needing something stronger than coffee. I'm Davis Bloome, by the way."

Somehow that got through my defences, and I stopped and turned around. "I don't drink, actually," I said, feeling like I needed to apologize for my genetic sensitivity to alcohol. If Davis knew something about Antarians, did he already know that detail about our metabolism? "But the Golden age has drinks on the menu. If you want to talk or just hang out while you grab your brew, that's good enough for me. And otherwise is fine too - I sure don't want to intrude on your privacy if that's what you need to get through the day."

Davis tried out a weak smile. "So you're just a coffee guy, huh?"

"I'd love to knock back a beer, but I can't handle it," I explained.

"Oh - are you recovering? Or allergic to alcohol??"

"More like the second," I explained. "Oh, and I didn't give my side of the introductions. Michael Guerin, from Roswell."

"That so?" Davis said, walking over and offering his hand to me for a shake.

I looked down at the hand. "Umm, maybe we'd better not. That's what got us into this mess in the first place."

Davis looked confused. "What do you mean, what mess?"

"You know, the, umm..." I lowered my voice. "The Antarian thing?"

"What's an Antarian?"

Now it was my turn to be perplexed. Could Davis have forgotten the circumstances of our meeting or his first words to me so quickly? Just what did he think about why I had asked him out for coffee, then? But I didn't really want to either jog Davis' memory, or bail out of the arrangement that we'd settled on quite yet. "It's, umm, it's a word for people who don't like being touched," I blurted out. "Sorry, I thought that you realized."

"Oh - umm, okay." Davis shrugged, and made sure to give me more than enough personal space as we walked back to the cafe. Once we were there, I drank the rest of my cappucino down quickly before it could get any colder and ordered another while Davis selected a brand he liked out of the beers that were available on tap. Getting a conversation going took a bit of effort, but when I started to talk a bit about work back home as a security guard, apparently that was close enough to an ambulance man's job for Davis to relate. From there, the topic shifted to incredible but true stories about work colleagues and after-work guys' mornings out, (because we were both familiar with the graveyard shift.)

"Umm - what are you doing here?" I looked up, and saw Chloe standing a few yards away from our table, wearing a bright red coat open over the same casual wardrobe she'd been wearing that morning to Queen Industries.

"Well, you told me to meet you here," I told her, feeling flustered. "What are you doing here? Umm, this is..." I waved at Davis, and then something added up in my head. "Davis, Chloe, do the two of you know each other?"

"Well, you could say that, yes," Davis said with a guarded smile. "The details get a bit complicated. Well, now that you're here with us, Missus Olsen, are you going to select beer or coffee?" He paused as Chloe stepped slowly closer to the table. "Or do the two of you have something private to discuss?"

"Well, yes, umm, we do, but..." Chloe hesitated. "It's not so pressing that I can't make small talk while you finish your drink, Davis." She pulled up a third chair to the table. "And I think that after the day I've had, I need one of the Golden Age's famous raspberry-orange smoothies." I chuckled. "And to rephrase my original question, Mister Guerin, just how did you run into my good friend Davis?"

"Hey, he ran into me, literally," I replied, laughing as loudly as I could, though I was starting to think that something not-funny was going on. "It nearly became a fistfight, but I invited him to come back here and have a cup of coffee, and he started to get very insistent about beer."

"I see," Chloe said, and I wondered if she also saw that something had happened that wasn't being said. Davis did have a thoughtful, intent look on his rugged face, as if he realized that he didn't remember the very start of his encounter with me, and was trying to cover that up without being obvious about it.

At this point, the waitress came over. "Another capuccino, sir? Something for the lady?"

"Umm," I said, looking down at my empty cup and remembering the high prices on the menu - and the prominent mention of 'no free refills.' "What the heck, sure, fill me up again," I declared.

"Raspberry-orange," Chloe ordered crisply. "On my own bill, please."

"Sure, honey." The waitress paused after taking my mug. "I've seen you in here before, right?"

"Probably, yeah," Chloe agreed, nodding. "Been a regular since my university days."

"Do you mind if I try to guess?" the waitress continued. I wasn't sure what she was talking about, but after a moment Chloe shrugged. "Your... fiancee," she continued, pointing at Davis, "and this other gentleman is his - no, your old high school friend who he's meeting for the first time. Am I right?" She took the flabbergasted look on Chloe's face for stunned agreement. "Don't worry, sir, they don't have that kind of history," she said to Davis, and swept away for their drinks.

The waitress hadn't quite stepped through the patio door before Chloe burst out laughing, which set Davis off in a series of rich and deep guffahs. I chuckled a bit myself. "So the two of you really aren't..."

"No, no!" Chloe insisted. "I'm a married woman - not that I'm getting the usual newlywed perks at the moment." She paused awkwardly.

"Right - how's Jimmy doing, anyway?" Davis asked.

Chloe cleared her throat. "Really, umm, really well. The doctors say that he'll be strong enough to get transferred back to Metropolis General in less than a week."

"Umm, Jimmy's your husband?" I asked. Chloe nodded silently. "This is obviously a personal question, and you don't have to answer, but what is he under a doctor's orders for?"

Chloe looked over at Davis, acutely uncomfortable and possibly a little resentful for the direction he'd taken the conversation in. Davis just shrugged. "Somebody, or some - animal, attacked our wedding reception. Jimmy got beat up pretty badly. He - he might have died, if it hadn't been for Oliver's connections, and even though Metropolis has world-class hospitals, the particular medical specialists he needed weren't here."

"Okay, I get the picture," I told her. I'd gotten more than Chloe had said out loud, too. Chloe obviously understood something about aliens on Earth, and the kind of people who might be looking for them. Had that been part of what Jimmy had been caught in the middle of?

"Well, I'm sorry, I got us all off small talk," Davis said. "Sorry about that. Just about finished my beer, though." With a flourish, he put the mug to his lips and tipped it up to drain the last. "So I guess I'll be heading off and letting the two of get to whatever you need to be talking about." He rose to his feet, shaking slightly and holding onto the table to steady himself.

"You be careful, okay?" Chloe said, sounding a bit worried. "Arrive alive."

"It's one beer, killjoy, and I hadn't even been planning on driving."

"The way you're keeping your balance, even walking is worrying me," Chloe shot back, but she was obviously joking, and as Davis walked off he clearly made a point of sticking to a straight-line course, like the cops made people do at roadside stops.

"Okay, what's his story, really?" I asked Chloe in a whisper, once Davis seemed to be out of range.

Chloe just stared back at me silently for nearly a minute before she answered, even more quietly. "I - I'm not even sure yet, and I'd rather not repeat some of the suspicions I do have. Whoever else Davis Bloome might be, he's still a good friend. And we're here to talk about something else entirely."

"Yeah," I agreed. "Oliver Queen. I understand a bit more why you're protective of him, now, if his influence and clout saved your husband's life, but..."

"I'm not running interference for you with Oliver," Chloe insisted. "Really, I'm not. But I'm afraid I didn't have that much luck arranging your meeting. He's taken off, out of town."

"Oh, really?" I said, rolling my eyes upwards.

"Yes, and I didn't give him the hint to make himself scarce. Not sure avoidance is his style, even if he knew that you'd come to Metropolis anyway." Chloe sighed. "He did say that he'd be able to meet with you once he's done with this - trip, which will take two days." She sighed. "Do you want to stay in town for that long?"

"You should know better than to even ask," I told her firmly. "I said that I wasn't going anywhere until I settle things with Queen."

"Alright." Chloe sighed. "I'm afraid I can't be your personal concierge the whole time, but is there anything else I can to do lend a hand in the meantime?"

"Well, yes, actually," I said, leaning my head closer so that I could speak very quietly. "I'm starting to realize that I need a bit more info on the lay of the land. Starting with exactly who I need to worry about finding me here, and - well, I do understand that you might not want to talk much about what happened at your reception, but I think I need to understand if it's..." He hesitated, then mouthed the word 'alien', and continued in a soft whisper "...related or not."

Chloe's mouth dropped open. "It's... it's unsolved, seriously, though Oliver and I and some of our other friends are working on changing that very hard. One of - of those might have done it, but there are other possibilities too."

"Other possibilities?" I asked her dubiously.

"Yeah." Chloe sighed. "I guess I forgot that it was Maria who Oliver told the facts of life here in Kansas too, and that she couldn't possibly have conveyed all of that to you and your friends. I - I used to keep track of strange things that happened around here, when I was growing up in Smallville, and there's a lot of stuff that's wall-of-weird-worthy besides aliens and alien hunters."

"Wall of what-the-hell?"

"Oh, sorry." Chloe laughed nervously at my rather loud explosion. "The wall of weird - it was this big bulletin board that I filled up with news reports of oddities and unexplained phenomena, back in the newspaper office at Smallville High. The point is - well, it could be an alien, it might not be, but either way, it's bloody dangerous. And - let's see, what else do I need to tell you?"

"Hunters?" I reminded her quietly.

"Right. Basically, either lone crazy crackpts, or LuthorCorp. Lex Luthor was a man of many obsessions, and extraterrestrials among us was one of them. He's - well, Lex is out of the picture now, but the corporation is carrying on."

"Okay." I nodded. "I'll want some details, but perhaps this isn't the right place and time for them." Chloe nodded. "Nothing else that immediately comes to mind as important info?"

"Well, let's see." Chloe leaned close. "Can I trust you to keep things secret, even from your friends back in Roswell, until I say that it's okay to tell them?"

"That depends entirely on what kind of secret it is and if I think my friends need to know," I shot back instantly.

"Right." Chloe sighed. "Well, I'll just ask you to be cautious before spreading this information."

"Maybe you shouldn't even tell me," I muttered.

"Maybe not - but I'm going to anyway. I think it's the right thing to do." Chloe took a deep breath. "Oliver Queen is more than he might appear - several years he started to organize a team of - of freedom fighters, in a sense. Vigilantes in the best sense of the word." She took a deep breath, and dropped her whisper even lower. "He's not exactly the leader anymore, but Oliver's still very invested in the Justice League."

I blinked, trying to absorb all of this. "And why are you telling me this?"

"A lot of reasons," Chloe said. "There are - two aliens currently on the League roster, and a few others are humans who have been changed through exposure to alien artifacts and forces." She chuckled hollowly. "Including me. I'm a meteor freak and I was infected with an alien cellular computer for a while as well."

"So - so you're on this team of Oliver's?" I asked her.

"Yeah, I guess so - not a field player most of the time, but I'm a member, why?"

"I want to meet these alien vigilantes of yours, then," I announced. "As soon as possible."

"Oh, wow." Chloe sighed. "Maybe I should have expected that you'd ask that. It - it could be too dangerous..."

"You know, I'm starting to get a little tired of you telling me what's too dangerous, Missus," I grumbled. "Maybe I should just do a little bit of looking around for myself." And trying my best to make it look casual, I let my fingers brush against the back of Chloe's hand when I took my next drink of coffee.

By the time the momentary dizzy sensation of absorbing flashes from another person's mind had faded, Chloe was staring accusingly at me. "Don't think that I'm clueless about what you just did, Mister Guerin," she whispered back hotly. "Oliver told me plenty about your abilities. Again, that's something that could have been very dangerous for us all - if I hadn't been mentally disinfected lately. But whatever, that's all in the past now. Did you find out what you were looking for?"

"Enough," I grumbled, trying not to give away that I hadn't actually learned as much as I'd hoped to. "I may need to do a bit more looking around - like in Smallville, say."

"Oh, no, you c..." Chloe cut herself off at that point. "In Metropolis, at least you can hide in the crowds. LuthorCorp is watching Smallvile, too - and even the locals notice strangers there." I just kept staring at her, trying not to let the hostility that I was feeling boil over. "On the other hand for all the gratitude that I get looking after you, trying to keep your friends by making sure that nobody starts looking at them too closely, I don't know why I bother!" And with that, Chloe rose, sweeping up the smoothie cup into her hand with a dramatic gesture, and swept away from the patio without looking back.

I took a few minutes to finish the coffee, and then wandered back to my motel, trying to make sense of the imagery that I had flashed on from Chloe's mind and not having very much luck with most of it. One thing that was definitely clear was that Chloe had known one particular alien for many years. He was probably one of the ones who she now worked with in her Justice Bowl-a-thon, I decided, and possibly she'd found his secret while they were both back in high school - much as Maria, Liz, and the others had found out about us in Roswell.

And high school, for Chloe, had been in Smallville Kansas. Did her alien friend still live there, or had he moved away? Chloe herself had either left Smallville or was possibly commuting to the big city for whatever she did here all day. There were too many possibilities, too many unknowns as yet. Perhaps Jimmy was the alien, and they'd fallen in love and gotten married. Which suggested that Jimmy could have been targeted for the attack by someone or something that didn't like aliens, and that the 'specialist medical help' that Oliver Queen had provided would be obliged to keep secrets of alien physiology among everything else. But wouldn't Chloe have asked me for help if she had an alien husband who was still going through a difficult recovery? (Not that I could help that much himself...)

After thinking about it for a long time, Michael decided that for the time being, at least, I wouldn't go to Smallville after all. I stayed in the room as the afternoon stretched into evening, and then finally emerged for dinner, not liking the sudden sensation that Metropolis was full of hostile eyes on the lookout for aliens. I hadn't even wanted to call and check in with Max and Liz, partly because I didn't even know what to tell them. So staying out of touch was better for now.

My pickup truck had been unreliable lately, probably on account of how many times alien powers had been used to repair it over the years, so I'd come to Metropolis on the Greyhound, and gotten an interior second-floor room at the Red Carpet. So when I came out hungrily for dinner, I prowled down the hallway, took the stairs to the lobby two at a time - and was starting to push the doors open when I heard a soft coughing noise that made me stop still.

When I turned, I saw a young woman with short dark hair sitting in one of the red upholstered armchairs that had been set in the corners of the lounge area, and she was making that 'clearing my throat on purpose' gesture with her hand in front of her mouth. Then the hand dropped away, the mystery woman smiled, probably satisfied that she'd been able to catch my attention in such a simple way, and rose gracefully to her feet. I could see that she was slender, and dressed in a tight red sleeveless sweater, and a long black skirt, probably imitation leather. With her perfect cheek bones and smoky brown eyes, it didn't seem likely that she was the sort of girl who usually had problems attracting male attention - unless she thought of attracting too many men as a problem.

"Follow me," she said, stepping past me and through the doors, and somewhat to my surprise, I did. "I'm glad that you didn't try to leave through the parking lot - I wasn't entirely sure where to wait."

"What's going on here?" I asked. "Did Chloe Olsen send you?"

The striking young woman turned back to me once we were out on the sidewalk and her lips quirked with amusement. "Yeah, my best friend thought that it'd be a good idea if we got to know each other a little, Michael. By the way, my name is Lana - Lana Lang. And while we're on the subject of names, Chloe didn't take Jimmy's name, as far as I know. She's still Chloe Sullivan."

"Oh." I filed that away, wondering why Davis had called her Missus Olsen - maybe a joke about her newlywed status, if he knew that she didn't want to be called that. "So, are you supposed to take over where Chloe left off, making sure that I don't poke my nose where it doesn't belong?"

"Not in the least," Lana insisted. "Wherever you want to go, I'll just tag along and do what I can to keep you safe - both in terms of keeping your secrets secret, and your adorable self unscratched and free from captivity."

This was starting to sound truly ridiculous. "The only place I want to go is somewhere I can grab something to eat!"

"Are you sure about that, Michael?" Lana whispered, her voice slightly husky. I swallowed and couldn't think of an immediate reply. "Okay, you can think about that over dinner. Wherever you want to go this evening, in all Metropolis, I'm up for it."

"You - you should be careful about making open-ended promises like that, Lana," I stammered, trying to get my flirt on and catch up with this girl.

"I didn't say that I'd do whatever you wanted me to do when we get there," Lana teased back. "But come on - our dinner is waiting somewhere. How about you let me pick the restaurant, and treat you, since you're a visitor to Metropolis?"

"I should stand on male dignity and refuse," I said. "But when dignity isn't backed up by the pocketbook, it's a little..." I couldn't find the right word, and shrugged. "Lead on, Lana Lang."

"My pleasure, Michael Guerin," Lana said, and took my hand to drag me across the street through a gap in the whizzing traffic that seemed only just wide enough for the two of us.


TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Chapter Two

"I have to admit," I admitted, as Lana gestured to a storefront on Pierce street, and I held the door open for her. "When you made such a big deal out of treating me to dinner because I was a visitor here, I actually expected somewhere a little more... well, completely out of my price range."

"Oh really," she shot back as I joined her in the foyer of Luigi's pizza. "Michael Guerin, do I really look like I have a huge budget and can drop hundreds of dollars on - I don't know, any entree you want in the city's best steakhouse?"

"I really didn't know for sure," I said, slapping the 'It would be our pleasure to seat you' sign in the hopes of attracting a hostess' attention. "You certainly look like a million bucks this evening, in more than one way."

"Hmm?" Lana seemed confused, and actually looked down at herself. "Oh, right, the fancy designer clothes? Call that... my one great temptation, I suppose."

"Does that mean it's your only temptation?" I continued, grinning as charmingly as I could.

"You'll have to wait to find that out," she said, laughing. I tried to think of something to keep the banter going. but just at that point somebody showed up to ask us if a table for two would be fine - and it wasn't a hostess, I was very slightly disappointed to find out, but a slightly pizza-faced teenager in a waiter's outfit.

"Yes, it's just the two of us tonight," Lana replied. "What would you prefer, Michael - a table near the window, in the middle of the room, or a secluded booth in the corner?"

I had to think for a moment about that. The secluded booth was tempting, but a part of me wanted to say something that Miss Lana Lang wouldn't entirely expect. "The window sounds good, honestly, let me look out at the street and keep an eye on the people, if that's alright for you. I mean, as beautiful as you are, Lana, you'd probably feel uncomfortable if I just never stopped staring at you, all through the meal."

Lana shot over one meaningful look at pizza-face, but I couldn't quite tell what she was trying to convey, or what the waiter interpreted from it. "Can't object to that... though I've been stared at a lot, and coming from a guy like you, as awkward as it might become, I can't say that I'd entirely mind."

In about a minute, we were seated in the one booth in the dining room that afforded a window view out onto the street, and looking at menus. "Okay, hmm... as good as the pizza is here, I think that tonight I'm more in a mood for the spaghetti cacciatora, or maybe canneloni alfredo. How about you?"

"Definitely pizza for me," I agreed, smiling. "Deep-dish chicago style looks good, topped with - umm, spicy italian sausage, pineapple, hot red peppers, and... damn." He slapped one of his pockets. "I don't usually head out for dinner without grabbing it, but - yeah, I was planning on grabbing something mexican or Thai, before you waylaid me, and then I wouldn't have needed to bring my own..."

"What?" Lana asked curiously. "Some kind of medication... what, Italian gives you heartburn that Mexican doesn't? I wouldn't have expected that - but if that's it I'm sorry. You could run back to the motel while I..."

"No, no, it's nothing that important," I insisted, wonderng just how spicy this place made their Italian sausage. "Do you suppose a place like this might have Tabasco sauce as a condiment, if you ask nicely?"

"You want Tabasco sauce on your pizza - AND the peppers and sausage?" Lana repeated, somewhat dubiously.

"Well, yeah." I shrugged nonchalantly, and then an opportunity occured to me. Leaning forward, and making an effort to keep my eyes locked onto Lana's face instead of straying below her neck, (the sweater didn't show off any skin, but it was tight enough to not hide much,) I whispered conspiratorially. "How much did Maria tell you... about us?"

"Well, me, nothing at all," Lana replied just as quietly, her voice excitingly husky, and I breathed in a bit of her perfume as she paused in thought. "I only met her the one time, actually, and I didn't know anything at all about her other than that she was Oliver's date. Just made some very small small talk. But Chloe's filled me in on a few of the details, that Oliver told her, as I understand it. Why, what makes you ask about that right now?"

"It's a dietary quirk," I breathed back at her. "Very sweet and very spicy, all at the same time. Can't get enough of that."

"Oh." Lana stared right back at my for a silent moment. Probably she was absorbing the implications that I'd hinted at, but she didn't give anything away along those lines. "I grow more and more sure that you and I are going to get along just great, Michael Guerin."

"You may be right," I had to admit, settling back to my side of the booth. "So, have you decided?"

"What?"

"Your order." I gestured at the menu. "Spaghetti or canneloni?"

"Umm... the spaghetti, I guess," Lana said, blinking a bit in surprise. "Nothing against canneloni, by any means, but I think I'll want the chicken, tonight."

"Okay." The conversation lagged for a moment as I tried to come up with something clever to say, and then the waiter came along and took our orders, promising my that he'd do his best to come up with some sort of a spicy pepper sauce for me to sprinkle on the pizza.

"I'm sure that they'll have something back in the kitchen, though it's not a usual request," he said. "You two have a great evening."

"Thank you," Lana said, and waited until the waiter had retreated again before hitting me with a two hundred-watt intense stare.

"So, umm - what's your story, Lana?" I had to ask. "I'm not sure how much Chloe told you about me when she sent you along to - keep me company, but you have to have the advantage over me." This wasn't quite as true as it might have been - I had been searching the impressions that I'd gotten from Chloe, and had picked out a few things about Lana from them - an old high school friend from Smallville, the popular prom-queen type who Chloe had felt somewhat overshadowed by, and some kind of romantic drama, where the guy that Chloe had been into, had in turn been into Lana. It seemed that Lana had been something like Smallville's answer to Isabel Evans, and though that comparison was a little strange in terms of my sudden attraction to Lana and our flirting so far, I was also glad to have some kind of a line her, especially without Lana realizing that I posessed such an avenue of knowledge.

"Well, let's see," Lana said, taking a deep breath. "When I was very young, both of my parents were killed, in Smallville's first meteor shower." She paused, waiting for my reaction to that much.

"Umm, I'm sorry," I mumbled immediately. "I didn't mean that you had to share everything so personal, or..."

"No, it's alright," she told me. "You asked me for my story, and I didn't have to start it there, but for you, I thought that made sense. For a long time, as I grew up with my Aunt Nell, I felt that that tragedy was hardly something personal anyway, as if the whole world was sorry for my loss. There was a photo of me that got into the papers, even - me at two years old, dressed up in a fairy costume or something like that, looking completely lost and confused - taken right after the meteors hit up,during the first reaction and confusion." She shot me a meaningful look. "Is this ringing a bell by any chance?"

"Well, no," I had to admit. "I've never even heard of the Smallville meteor showers until earlier today. But, so - you lost your parents when you were very young, raised by your aunt. What then?"

"Not quite sure what else is important," she said. "When I was a teenager, I guess I was looking for a connection to my parents and they'd left me a theater on Main street in Smallville, the Talon. It had been closed down since they died, but I made a project out of getting it opened as a coffee shop sort of thing. Of course, I couldn't manage it myself, with classes and all, but I interviewed job applicants and did my best to stay on top of the books, and even helped out waiting tables when I could."

"Impressive project for someone of that age," I agreed. "So, umm... what about since high school?"

"You want the fast-forward?" she asked. "Umm, let's see. Went to Metropolis U for a few semesters... didn't exactly keep with it and get my degree, at least not yet. Got engaged, and then briefly married, to a man who was definitely NOT good for me. Got divorced."

"Ohh," I muttered.

"Yeah, that's a lot to cram into a few sentences, isn't it?" Lana agreed.

"You could say that," the waiter said, stepping forward with our drinks - I had ordered a peach Snapple, and here it was, poured into a tall plastic glass with a swirl pattern, along with Lana's diet Sprite. "Sorry, Miss, but I just recognized you. Lana Luthor, right?"

I raised an eye curiously and shot the resulting look over at Lana - and realized that that combination of names had obviously upset her badly. That must be her ex-husband's name, I realized - and possibly he was famous or something, if Lana was recognized as Missus Luthor.

Luthor. The name suddenly made a connection for me. Chloe had mentioned that LuthorCorp might be hunting for aliens in the Kansas area, and a man named... Lex? Could that be the man that Lana had married?

Lana was trying to come up with a response, and I jumped in to help, or try at least. "Her real name is Lana Lang," I told the waiter, with just a bit of brusqueness in my voice.

"Oh - of course," the guy said, nervously reached out to adjust my glass about a quarter-inch to the left for some reason, and made a quick escape back towards the kitchen.

"Thanks," Lana muttered. "The name doesn't mean anything to you, does it? I think somebody - Oliver or Chloe, mentioned that the Luthors don't seem to get much press down in New Mexico."

The thought of Chloe and her friends discussing Maria's reactions to anything gave me a bit of an unpleasant jolt. "I can't say that I'm too clear on the exploits of Lex Luthor, but I'm a night security guard, and so I have a lot of time to read the newspaper, as long as everything else is secure. Somewhat eccentric corporate heir, had a couple of entertaining showdowns with his father, that is, if you think that plant buyouts make for riveting stuff."

"Oh, don't get me started on Lionel," Lana muttered. I didn't mean to get her started, but couldn't help the curious thoughts that went through my head about Lana's reaction to her ex-father-in-law, and she must have caught some of that on my face. Looking around, she started to whisper again. "Well, the day of my wedding to Lex, I... cold feet doesn't really cover it. I realized what a mistake I was making, and that I still had feeling for - for someone else. Lionel came to my dressing room, and blackmailed me into going through with the wedding, by threatening the other young man that I cared about."

That did seem quite intense and scary to me, even compared to some of the things I'd been through myself. "But if Lionel and Lex were always feuding, why did Daddy Luthor care? Unless he was concerned about the family's reputation, and didn't want his son to get left at the altar because of that."

"No." Lana shook her head. "Lionel wanted me to marry Lex so that I could spy on his secrets, and report back."

"Oh." I wasn't quite sure how to reply to that.

"So, how about you tell me a little of yourself?" Lana said, more loudly, and with a brightness to her voice that was just slightly fake.

"Umm, sure," I said, trying quickly to organize how much I wanted to tell Lana and how much I had to keep secret, or at least unspoken. "Orphan kid, found out in the desert by a rancher. Grew up in an orphanage and bouncing between a few foster homes before landing with a mean SOB foster father in a trailer who didn't care about much other than cashing the checks from social services. When he started hitting me, and pulled a gun on my best friends, then I... I petitioned for emancipation, got a job at the Crashdown Cafe, thanks to a friend of a friend whose parents owned and ran it, and got an apartment of my own."

"Right, okay," Lana said, thinking about that much. "And Maria DeLuca?"

I had to shake my head, lost in the memories. "Maria drove me crazy nearly from the moment that we met, and I guess I pissed her off plenty too. It wasn't too long before a kiss snuck into one of our fights - I did it first, and then told her that I'd done that to shut up her big mouth. Soon, we were one of the regular on-again, off-again fixtures at West Roswell High."

"Like Xander and Cordelia, from Buffy the vampire slayer?" Lana asked.

"Well, maybe a little. We didn't really keep disliking each other for long, but it was hard to keep dating happily without getting into fights and temporarily breaking up for some reason or another. But I knew that I loved her, and that when she left Roswell to go to university in Albuquerque, I needed to step up my game to keep some suave player with deeper pocketbooks from sweeping her away from me. So I moved to Albuquerque to be close to her, got a job there, and did my absolute best to treat her well, to be nice and considerate without going too far and turning into some kind of gutless doormat." I sighed.

"I... I see." Lana shrugged a little bit. "Well, the waiter's coming with our food, so maybe that's enough sharing of the personal history stuff just for a little while. Have you put any thought into what you want to do together after we eat?"

"Hmm." I gathered my thoughts. "You know, I might just have an idea."

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

"When I said that I would tag along for whatever you wanted to do, this was not what I had in mind," Lana grumbled as we got into the elevator.

"Well, you did say whatever - if you draw the line at a little breaking and entering, then what's next?" I replied.

"I'm not drawing the line - did you hear me say the words 'I'm drawing the line at that?'" Lana shook her head. "But I want to go on record as saying that this is foolish... and unhealthy."

"Welcome to my world," I told her with a little laugh. The elevator number '11' lit up and both of us felt the distinct sensation of the car slowing to a stop, and then the doors slid open. "Eleven-oh-two," I repeated the number as we stepped out into the hallway and looked around, trying to get my bearings. No door numbers were actually visible from the elevator lobby area, in the middle of a long hallway without branches, and there was no helpful plaque indicating '1101-1104 to the left, 1105-1108 to the right' or anything of that sort. "I guess we'll have to go hit-and-miss and see..."

"Come on," Lana grumbled, grabbing my wrist and proceeding to the left, essentially tugging me gently along.

"Have you been to visit her here?" I asked.

"No, but I used to know somebody down on third," she muttered. We passed Eleven-oh-one on the left, and Eleven-oh-four on the right, so I guessed that Eleven-oh-two would be at the very end of this hallway, and again on the left. I also did my best to take a look at the lock arrangement on the doors as we passed, to see what my powers would be up against. There was something that looked like a fairly traditional keyhole in the middle of the doorknob, and also a rectangular pad on the doorframe about six inches higher than the knob with a little LED on the edge of the pad. When we got to Eleven-oh-two and Eleven-oh-three, I saw the same pads next to both doors.

"Do you know what the deal with those things is?" I asked Lana, pointing to them.

"RFID sensor locks," she explained. "You get a pass-card like a credit card, that you can keep in your wallet. You just need to wave it close to the sensor pad, and it detects the computerized chip inside the card. The indicator light shows up green, and then you have thirty seconds or so to use the traditional key on the spring lock and open the door, before the RFID circuit resets itself."

"That's pretty complicated," I pointed out, and took a deep breath to center myself and get ready to fool these fancy locks.

"Well, the people who live in this building do it because security is important to them," Lana pointed out. "Oliver must have gotten Maria in here. I don't know all the details of what happened when Maria first came to the city, but there were dangerous people who were trying to find out about - about your secrets from her, and it was Oliver who..."

"Ssh," I told her, not just because she shouldn't be talking about this stuff in a semi-public place. Once Lana had broken off, I waved one hand over the RFID sensor pad, let it sense whatever it wanted to and allowed the LED to go green. Simple, once you know how, and if you've got the Antarian mojo to let it happen with. Another wave near the doorknob, and it turned easily enough. "What do you think of that?" I asked Lana as I strolled into Maria's apartment.

As Liz has told me many times, after pride comes disaster. I'd taken only a few steps inside the apartment before an siren started to go off. I started to turn, to see where the alarm panel was, and felt a whooshing sensation of a breeze blowing past me for a moment, and then the sound had stopped, which was good. Unless anybody on the floor, or above or below Maria's apartment, had known exactly what to listen for, they probably wouldn't even realize what had happened. But still, I was confused for a moment. I found the alarm keypad on the other side of the door from the way I'd gone - and the little LCD screen was blank. What had...

And then I spotted Lana, halfway across the room, with a lump of something compact in her hand that was trailing wires. It was... "What's going on?" I asked her. "Is that the power source for the alarm system?"

"Yeah, and, umm, and the micro-modem that it uses to call home to the central system," she pointed out.

"Right." I took another look at the panel, closing the apartment door as I did so, now that we were both inside. "My best guess is, a system like this would be set up to 'call home' regularly on an hourly schedule just to say 'yeah, everything's clear.' Now that you've gone and damaged the system, I don't think I can fake that call, even using my alien powers."

"Did you want it to relay the alarm through to central office?" Lana pointed out, and I didn't bother answering. "So, we've got anywhere from zero to sixty minutes until they notice that's something's wrong, and we can't really guess how long. How long do you really need to spend snooping in here?"

"I'm not sure, but I'll try to make it quick," I told her. Flipped on the lights, and started walking around the living room, looking at everything, no idea what would satisfy me, or upset me bad enough that I wanted to give up. "So, just how did you pull that little trick, anyway? You moved at least fifteen feet in the blink of an eye, and I wouldn't expect many girls to be able to pull that thing off the wall with their bare hands. And I don't think you're extraterrestrial either. Chloe mentioned something about meteor rock infection - is that your story?"

"No, I'm no Kryptonite freak," Lana said, with a little laugh, and tossed me what was left of 'that thing' to me. To my surprise, I realized that the metal was warm, and even looked in places like it had been fused or partly melted. Was Lana just that strong, or did she have some kind of heat touch as well? (She sure looked hot, but I hadn't noticed anything particularly warm when I'd touched my hand, but maybe it was under her control.)

"So that's just it?" I asked after a moment. "You're not going to explain any more?"

"I didn't promise that I'd answer all your questions, just that I'd come where you wanted me to go," Lana teased back.

I got distracted from the teasing, because at that moment I spotted something that I hadn't realized I was looking for - a new picture of Maria that had been taken since she first went to Metropolis. There were four people in the picture, actually, one was Maria in a pretty dress, burgundy or maroon or some color like that - and I was briefly sorry for not having gotten a better look at her in this outfit than a five by seven snapshot, especially considering the low neckline.

I also recognized Chloe Sullivan in the photo, wearing a white dress, with a white veil swept back behind her head. The two young men in tuxedos were harder to identify, though I'd found a few not-so-great pictures of Oliver Queen on the web while researching this trip to Metropolis, and the man standing between the two ladies in the photos could have been Queen. That would probably make the guy on the other side of Chloe her new husband, Jimmy Olsen.

"What do you make of this?" I asked Lana, picking up the frame and showing it to her.

"Chloe made such a beautiful bride, didn't she?" Lana said, smiling. "I'm glad that I made it back to Kansas in time to crash the ceremony."

"She - she didn't invite you to her wedding?" I asked, taken aback. "I thought that the two of you were BFFs from high school and everything." Of course, I knew that it wasn't quite so simple, but...

"And just who told you that? Chloe didn't mention me to you, I'm pretty sure of that, and I haven't told you much about my friendship with her?" I shrugged. "I guess Roswell aliens have their ways too. And yes, we were close in high school, and even moreso in our Metropolis U years, but... I kinda got overwhelmed with the craziness of Metropolis, and took off, without leaving a forwarding address. Oliver Queen was the one who found me serendipitously, and brought me back for the wedding."

"Ahh," I said. "So was that when you met Maria?"

"Yeah, I shook her hand at the reception. We didn't really get a chance to talk then, since I had so many old friends to say hello to and there were lots of other people that Oliver wanted her to meet."

I considered this, and nodded. "Alright. Let's check the rest of place over, quickly, and then get out of here quick, before anybody else shows up."

"Including the bedroom?" Lana asked.

I pushed mentally at that thought to see if any part of my heart complained, like an elbow that I'd strained. There was no strong reaction. I'd been in Maria's bedroom too often to feel like it was off limits now, even if she'd broken up with me since the last time. "Yeah, sure, why not? In for a penny, in for the whole twenty bucks."

So saying, I headed off towards the small hallway that obviously led from the first room into the rest of the apartment. The first door that I turned down might have been originally intended as a second bedroom, but Maria had obviously turned it into a small studio - not really for serious recording - the label must have better facilities for that, but just for practicing her material and working on new songs and different variations on the ones she already had in her repertoire. Just then, something occurred to me. "Your - your ex-husband, Lana. Forgive me if it's indelicate to ask him a few questions about him, but this might be important."

Lana appeared in the doorway. "I don't mind answering questions, Michael - but are you sure that this is the right place and time?"

"Probably it isn't," I muttered, unsure if that should stop me. But reminding myself that at least I had to keep moving, and leave questions of Lana for when I could talk and searchat the same time, I moved toward the pile of pencil-written sheet music scattered over a desk near the armchair. Just what kind of songs might Maria be working on at this time? Bittersweet ballads about the rough-edged guy that she'd left behind? Sweet cutesy love pop about falling for a new guy?

I was too agitated to even try to read the notes - it's a language that I can occasionally make something of, but not easily. From the titles, though, there was one sad song about me, two love songs about Oliver, and one about being torn between guilt and exhilaration about leaving me for him. Also one about the energy about coming to live in the big city, a sad song about never having enough quarters for homeless people, and one about 'the girlfriends that I never see anymore.'

Time to move on, I knew. "Okay, the guy's name was Lex Luthor, right?" I asked as I approached Lana, and saw her nod silently as I passed the threshold of the studio. "Any idea what his connection is to LexRecords?"

Lana sighed and followed me silently as I went to the next door, the kitchen, and started to examine it. Only a few pots, lots of old takeout containers in the garbage, few leftovers and not many fresh ingredients in the fridge. "I don't know that much from my own experience with Lex, but I've heard a bit about how it relates to Maria."

"From Chloe again?" I charged across to another room - bathroom. Two toothbrushes next to the sink. Dammit.

"Directly from Oliver, actually, this time. It seems like the record label was one of the companies that Lex founded several years ago, back when he was feuding with his father, and trying to create a LexCorp empire to rival LuthorCorp's. As a twenty-something guy with some desire to be seen as cool and with-the-scene, and independent record label makes sense. He never mentioned it to me that I can remember, but then, by the time we were together, he had taken over considerable control of LuthorCorp, forcing his father into a background position, and integrating his own companies into the LuthorCorp hierarchy."

"And how long ago was that?" I asked, heading for the last door in the little hall, which would have to be Maria's room, by elimination.

"A little less than three years ago," Lana said after a moment.

"Just about the same time that somebody at LexRecords was recruiting Maria." I was starting to get angry about all this now. "So your ex-husband still has a contract with her."

"I'm not sure that Lex still has anything anymore," Lana said in a small voice. "He's missing, presumed dead - I guess you missed that headline."

"Oh." It did sound familiar, now that she mentioned it. I turned my attention away from the LexRecords discussion and started to examine the bedroom. It was arranged more neatly than I'd have expected from Maria, but then she did usually make more of an effort to tidy up when she was going to be gone for a little while. Queen-sized bed, made up crisply, and a small white bookcase near the window that was full of those skinny colored CD cases, and brightly colored DVD box sets.

Taking a deep breath, suspecting what I'd find, I went over to the dresser, trying the drawers from the top. Lots of usual Maria stuff that I remember, a few new brightly colored items - and the middle drawer was full of dark dress socks, plain white boxers, a few dress shirts in soft primary colors, and a guy's shaving gear and sports deodorant.

"Damn it to hell," I swore, slamming the drawer with a bang, though this was what I'd been expecting to find really. "Son-of-a-bitch has a drawer in her damn bedroom."

"I... that sucks," Lana whispered, stepping close to me where I stood, the drawer in question still open in front of me. "Maybe we should..." I turned to her and took one step to close the distance myself, and Lana reached one hand up towards my head. I wondered if she was going to stroke my cheek consolingly or some pity move like that, but instead her fingers slipped into the hair behind my ear, waving slightly as they brushed between the short fibers. Within a second her palm was cupping the back of my head, just above my neck, and then she was pulling my head down with a strength and certainty that surprised me. Lana Lang was tall for a woman, but I still had at least two inches of height on her, and once I was bending over by that much and staring into her eyes on an even level, her full red lips came in to deliver a kiss so hot it could have left blisters.

"Wow," I panted, once the dizziness had passed and I realized that I could talk again. "Get the hell out of here?" I asked, as a possible ending to Lana's unspoken suggestion. To a certain extent it was tempting to try throwing Lana down onto that big, inviting bed only a few feet away from us and see where that would lead to... but I pride myself on thinking through the consequences of impulses before I go along with them, and the thought of being caught by Metropolis security guards with another girl in my ex-girlfriend's bed was not particularly sexy right at the moment.

Lana nodded, a playful grin on her face. One of her hands was still on the back of my head, and her other arm had wrapped around my chest, so I had to arrange my own arm carefully to slide the Oliver drawer closed, and then we mutually disengaged to go through the apartment again and make sure that nothing else had been left disturbed to give away that someone had been here.

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

"So where to next?" Lana asked me as we stepped back out into the open Metropolis street. Night had fallen by now, and the lights of the big city were all around, completely overwhelming any last traces of starlight.

"Can we go back to your place?" I asked.

"Umm - that's a little awkward," she admitted, not meeting my eyes. "I'm crashing with a friend of a friend, and we didn't actually discuss the possibility of me bringing guys home - I didn't realize that I'd be on the rebound so fast. In fact, I think that it's probably 'date night in' for my gracious host, so unless you really want to share an open-plan loft with another couple..."

"Yeah, okay, I get the picture," I said as Lana trailed off. I was picking up on a few other mixed signals too - Lana might be 'rebounding' with me, but she still wasn't sure how far or fast she wanted to go. I'd gotten a different impression from that impulsive kiss back in Maria's place, but... hell, for all I knew, Lana had been playing up the hot appeal just to get me out there and keep me from throwing a real temper tantrum. Now that the job was done, she was cooling off again. As passionate as the kiss had been, I hadn't gotten any flash from Lana Lang, which suggested that she was still very guarded.

So I didn't suggest going back to my motel room - yet. "Well, the night is still far from middle-aged, or something like that. Can you think of somewhere that we could listen to some good music, talk without being overheard - and where maybe I could get a decaf coffee or something?"

Lana considered that, and looked around, probably orienting herself on a mental map of Metropolis. "I think I know a place - sure you don't want anything stronger than coffee, after what you've just learned?"

"No, nobody wants me to get a shot of whiskey into my system," I said, shaking my head, and wondering how many times I'd have to refuse drinks while I was here in the big city. "I... I become a very different person when I drink, and talk way too much - for somebody with so many secrets."

"Oh, I see," Lana said. "I... I'd almost forgotten that you were another - well, never mind." She turned and headed up the sidewalk. "While we're on our way to your decaf, should I finish telling you what I know about LexRecords and Maria?"

"Umm... no, not right now." I said. "I don't really feel like prying into her life any more just at the moment, especially because I get the impression that Oliver Queen comes out looking very good in the story." Lana nodded. "What about you, Miss Lana Lang? You've been acting like the woman of mystery, but I think I want to see under your skin a bit. Just who is it that you're on the rebound from, anyway?"

Lana sighed. "You don't shy away from the difficult questions, do you Michael?"

"Well, no. I never have," I told her simply. Especially not with Maria - but I had enough sense not to say that out loud. "You can start simple. What was his name?"

"Clark."

"Oh-ho!" The name brought a rush of associations from the flash I'd gotten off Chloe Sullivan, including some details I hadn't realized I knew until they were triggered. This was indeed the guy who Chloe had been nuts over in high school, who had been mooning over Lana in turn, but for most of their high school years, at least, they hadn't been together. And Chloe knew that Clark had a big secret, as big as mine. Maybe even in the same galaxy as mine, so to say. (Not that Antarians really come from a different galaxy than Earthlings, as far as we can tell now.) "So, the two of you finally did hook up, but it ended badly, not long ago?"

I hadn't meant to blurt that out, and I realized just how good it might have been to engage the filter between brain and mouth when Lana stopped and glared at me. "Just how do you know anything about Clark and I? I'm sure that Chloe wouldn't have told you about that."

What the hell? I wanted to come clean with Lana, at least this much. Chloe already knew what I'd done, more or less, and she might yet spill the beans. "I... I got a mental flash from Chloe - I touched her fingers when we were meeting at the Golden Age, and - well, I was frustrated with her, and wanted to find out some of what she was hiding from me. Find out about this Clark guy, I guess, though I didn't even realize that I'd gotten his name until you mentioned it, and that brought a bunch of Chloe-ssociations up from my subconscious, or whatever."

"I... I see." Lana walked along in silence for half a block, next to me but not looking up. "Have you read anything out of my mind, Michael?"

"No," I told her. "Not even when you kissed me, which is a situation where it might have happened whether I wanted it to or not, but - well, some people's minds are naturally fairly closed off, and don't let us in."

"Good," Lana said, sounding very satisfied with the idea. "I... I hope that you don't feel I'm a horrible bitch or something, kissing you like that when - well, I'm not sure if I'm ready to jump into something serious with a guy I just met. I guess you picked that up." She sighed. "Maybe it would be better, if I could really just throw myself into being on the rebound, no matter where it led to - but I've never really been that kind of person. I always hesitate, and second-guess myself, and never seem to end up getting anywhere."

"Even with L..." I should have stopped myself talking earlier than that. Looked over at Lana, and she seemed to be intentionally ignoring it and not reacting. That made sense, so I tried to forget that I'd said anything myself. "No, I don't think that you're a horrible... anything, Lana. Maybe I shouldn't be so eager to flirt and to try to find somebody to make me forget about Maria... but I can't try to pretend that I'm not... drawn to you. So, umm - we just go, I get my decaf and you get a drink if you like, and we take it from there?"

"That sounds great, Michael," Lana agreed, laughing pleasantly. She reached out to take my hand in hers, and just at that moment I did sense something, just strongly enough to make me shudder - and I realized fairly quickly that it wasn't from Lana. I looked all around, trying to trace the disquieting sensation of... well, I wasn't quite sure what it had been, but maybe something lurking around that alley, behind me and to the right?

Lana caught me staring. "Is something wrong, Michael?"

"It's probably nothing," I muttered. The only thing that I could think of were some of LuthorCorp's alien hunters tailing us, but that didn't seem to fit. "Let's pick up the pace, though, and get where we're going quickly."

"Got it," Lana agreed. hurrying ahead. I tried to watch behind us without being obvious about it, but it was hard to avoid focusing on the swaying of Lana's hips through her skirt from behind, if you know what I mean.


To Be Continued...

[Chrisken]

Chapter Three

"So, how are you enjoying your big night so far, Michael?" Lana asked me with a laugh as we emerged from the coffee house into the darkness of the Metropolis streetlights.

"Can't argue with the company," I quipped, shooting a sidelong look at Lana, and nearly getting lost in those dark brown eyes that were staring straight back at me. "The coffee was good, and the music - umm..."

The truth was, hearing a twenty-something girl playing her own songs on the Java Roast stage had, more than anything else, reminded me of Maria, but even I knew better than to say something like that to another girl, and especially to Lana, who was arguably playing the part of a rebound girl this evening. "Do you actually want to... could I be so bold as to ask you back to my crummy little motel room?"

"Why certainly, Mister Guerin," Lana replied, with overdone formality. "You may ask."

I had been about to say something else, not sure what, but that little twist she put on it made me burst out laughing, and I wasn't even sure if it was really funny. Maybe I was just getting more nervous about being around Lana Lang than I've been with a girl since... well, ever, really. "Okay, do you want to come back to my place and..." I tried to think of something witty to end it with - 'screw an alien boy' didn't really feel appropriate, (though I gathered it wouldn't be the first time for her,) and she knew very well that I wouldn't be having a nightcap with her. I almost wished that I had a stamp collection or signed baseball that I could use as a cover, but certainly I'd brought nothing in my luggage for this trip that could possibly cover the need, and wasn't sure what to make up if I was going to invent a notion.

"...And whatever comes next, will come next. I'd be delighted to," Lana said, smiling. "Only - let's take the scenic route back to Brantford Avenue, okay? I... I just don't want our big night out to end yet."

"Lady's choice," I shot back as suavely as I could, though I didn't feel so hyped about this notion. Was Lana still second-guessing herself, unsure about how far she wanted to go on the rebound herself, and using 'the scenic route' as a way of delaying and trying to figure out how to play the situation? Well, if that was the way she felt, then I could hardly blame her. "But you'll have to lead the way, because I don't know which routes are pretty and which ones are ugly."

"I think you've had enough chances to check me out from behind already," Lana teased. "I can tell you the way to go, or signal you, without moving ahead." And, as if to prove the point, she took my hand in hers, matching my pace so that our inside and outside feet were moving in sync. "Fair enough?"

"I'm certainly not complaining," I admitted, turning my head around and smiling at the whole city, because I felt as if something inside me would pop from being too excited and pleased if I looked at Lana again.

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

I felt a slight jar as we turned and started to walk, still hand in hand, down the street that would take us back to my motel in perhaps ten more minutes of casual strolling. I turned to look behind me, and Lana looked as well. "That isn't the first time you've done that tonight. What's wrong?" she asked.

"I... I don't know, I thought I felt something - a shaking in the ground, if you can believe it." A pause. "Is Metropolis in earthquake territory?"

"Not from anything I've ever heard," Lana muttered. "But - well, this is crazy, but I've felt the earth shaking when a meteor lands, miles away."

"Yeah, I think that's a bit of a reach," I muttered, though I wasn't so sure. There were other things beyond pieces of rock that could fall out of the sky, and I didn't really want to see any of them tonight. I still couldn't see anything obviously out of the ordinary, though this street seemed to be less crowded with late-night pedestrians and drivers than the ones that we'd been walking through before, and when I looked back to the main street we'd left, it also seemed to have emptied somewhat just in the past minute or two.

"Just a second," Lana said, pulling a slick-looking cell phone out of her purse and pushing buttons on it. "No news of meteor activity anywhere in smallville on the wire so far, that's good. Hang on again... okay, earthquake fault line danger." She peered closely at a colored map of the lower 48 that was showing on the phone's screen. "There's a zone of moderate risk that runs through a lot of Eastern Kansas, but I'm not sure if we're inside that blob or just close to it."

"Well, let's not worry about it at the moment," I suggested, but realized that I was walking more quickly. "I'd just feel better when we get back to..."

And then there was a thump somewhere in the distance, and another little shudder in the pavement. "Okay, I heard *that,*" Lana muttered. "And - well, as much as I understand the impulse to stay well out of the way of trouble - somebody else could be in danger, and you've got alien powers. Shouldn't we... um, check it out?"

"We?" I repeated doubtfully. At first, my impulse was to say that even if I went to go do the 'hero thing', then Lana should get herself clear - she looked so obviously like the damsel-in-distress type, even more than Liz. (No offense to her.) But then I remembered how we'd broken into Maria's apartment - how she'd gotten over to the alarm panel before I could even turn around and find it, and ripped it right out of the wall. "Okay, level with me, Lana Lang. Do you have, like, superpowers of your own?"

"Well, maybe they're not mine," she said with a little smile. "I stole something that Lex had designed for himself, not long before he died. But yeah, I can do some things that are seriously out of the normal now, and you don't really need to worry about me taking care of myself."

"Okay, then..." THUMP again, feeling like it was getting closer. "Is it just me, or does that sorta sound like it might have been following us?"

"Uh - yeah, actually, you might be right," Lana admitted. "That's a little disturbing."

"Then I suggest, instead of going after it, and maybe getting surprised too close when we go around the corner, or losing it trying to circle around, we should just stay here for a minute and wait." I pointed back up to the intersection that we'd just passed through. "If anybody else seems to be in trouble, we do what we can to help, or if it doesn't show up in that time, then I'm probably wrong and we can go chase it down. But if it's focused on just the two of us, then I want to be able to make a quick getaway."

Lana spent a moment thinking about it. "I'm not so sure I want to run just because it's chasing us. That's probably just postponing the moment of truth - especially if we're running on foot, and neither of us has a car right here."

"So, what, do you seriously want to get into a fight with a being of unknown abilities?" I asked.

"Maybe that's foolish," Lana admitted. "But I've never gotten into a scrap that I couldn't get my way out of, since I got this suit, and Clark never seems to bite off more he can chew by fighting for truth, justice, and whatever. He loses some battles, but he's always able to bounce back for next time. But Chloe did mention that Antarians aren't as tough as Kryptonians."

I bristled a little, but didn't rise to argue the point, possibly because I was feeling fairly fragile as whatever-it-was crashed towards us. "Can you give Clark a call, even if you're broken up, and get his help with this?" I asked desperately.

"Umm... no, not really. If the two of us weren't together, he'd be able to help you, but not me. It's complicated. But calling for backup makes some sense, justa sec." She pulled out a cell phone, punched in a short number, and then held down a button on the side and spoke into it. "Watchtower, this is Insect Queen. Come in, Watchtower."

I waited for an immediate response to come back over the push-to-talk, but no sound came from the phone. Instead, with a final crash, the figure that we'd been hearing approach rounded the corner - a tall, thickly built gray figure, with horns coming out from its ugly body all over. "Oh, SHEIT!" Lana screamed, and pressed the pushbutton on her phone again. "DAMMIT, CHLOE, WHERE ARE YOU?"

"What the hell, Lana? Had a call of nature!" Chloe's voice came back over the phone. "I mean, hello Insect Queen, this is Watchtower. What's wrong, did you lose track of Alien Boy?"

"No, he's right next to me," Lana shot back. "Just thought you'd like to know that the hostile who got Jimmy is coming after us." She grabbed my arm and turned to head back down the street. "And we're running away, as of this moment."

"Are... are you sure it's the same guy, Lana? I mean, none of us got a great look at the reception..."

"I saw enough, and frankly I can smell it from here," Lana reported back. "A very distinctive odor. By the way, how about getting us some backup here?"

"Let's see, umm... dammit, I can't send the blur in, not near you now, and Green Arrow and most of the rest of the League are out of town just at the moment." There was a pause as Chloe considered. "Can't you just super-speed outta there?"

"And leave Michael behind? He might be the one Mister Gray back there is after... and I've never tried to do the superspeed trick carrying somebody. Might crush him to death trying."

"Okay, yeah, definitely getting the feeling that you're not the one who needs taking care of in this pair," I muttered, my mind reeling with more than tiredness and panic. Skinny and elegant Lana Lang apparently had super-speed, crazy strength, and maybe some kind of extraordinary toughness. Except that apparently it wasn't all her - she'd mentioned 'getting the suit', and stealing something from Lex Luthor wanted to use for himself - except none of the clothes she had on right now were at all unisex. "I do have a suggestion, though. One that bends the letter of law and order a little, but under the circumstances..."

"Yeah, what's on your mind, Guerin?" Lana asked, putting the phone down but not letting go of it.

"Let's see - pick a car, any car." Lana blinked and pointed the phone towards a two-door American coupe, not too sporty looking on the outside, but probably had a lot of oomph behind the hood. "Good choice." I rushed over to the driver's side door, waved my hand over the lock, pulled the door open and sat down. With another wave, I brought the motor to life as well, and that turned on the power locks so I could let Lana into the shotgun.

"The security guard who can hotwire a car in under nine seconds," she quipped. "Not bad. Now drive, before our party crasher back there catches up."

"Just one second, let me concentrate," I said, and focused on a tiny thing that was just on the limit of what I could sense. Then I grinned over at Lana, pointed at a spot on the dash just above the fancy car stereo, and let a spark jump from my finger into the molded plastic. Then I put the vehicle into gear and pulled out into the street. "Lojack is now deactivated."

"That's a relief, I guess," Lana admitted. "Do you have any ideas for what we do next?"

"You could check in with Chloe," I pointed out. "But it sounds like there's nobody to rescue us immediately, and I doubt that going back to my motel or somewhere else fairly close by is going to lose that alien, or whatever it is. Certainly doesn't look human - do you suppose it could be a Kryptonite freak, or whatever you call them?"

"That'll do... and I suppose it's possible? I've seen freakier figures who were infected by Kryptonite... but somehow, I don't think that's it. It could well be some life form from another star."

"Maybe your nose knows," I joked. "Well - how about going to Smallville? Do you think that might be far enough to run?"

Now it was Lana's turn to give me a look out of the side of her eyes. "I suppose we could do worse than that, to start out. It makes sense for both of us to stick together, at least. If it's after you, then I can probably help protect you, if we can't stay away from it, and I suppose the same idea works the other way around. You're obviously a handy guy to have around in a tight scrape, even if you're not bulletproof."

"Are you?" I asked her.

"Umm... I'm not actually sure. Haven't tested it out, since I got suited up. But I was talking about - well, somebody else."

"Clark?" I asked.

"Yep, only took you one guess, what a surprise." Lana took a deep breath. "It seems kind of - I don't know if irony is really the right word or not, but... when Maria was new in Metropolis, and first met Oliver, I know that they went to Smallville together, to escape from some of Luthercorps' hired goons who were chasing her. Now it's the two of us taking that same trip, running away from something even more scary."

"Ehh, right," I muttered, not impressed by the way the subject had suddenly come around to Maria again. Maria and Oliver Queen. Oh joy. "Maybe we could drive all the way to Roswell."

"In a stolen car?" Lana pointed out. "Across state lines? That doesn't really sound terribly smart, though I suppose anything is possible." Just at that moment, a street light turned red forty feet in front of us. I literally hadn't noticed it going yellow, and hesitated just a moment, looking for cross-traffic, and pushed on through. Until I knew that we'd built up a lead on the Wedding Crasher back behind us, staying still seemed much too big of a risk to me. Lana sighed slightly, but didn't complain out loud.

"Traffic lights could be the death of us," I pointed out, looking into the rear view mirror. I couldn't actually see anybody behind me, but heard a screech of brakes, some sort of impact, and the pound of his tread on the asphalt continuing. Obviously he wasn't about to wait for the other traffic either. "How can we most quickly get on an Interstate from here? Without doubling back on our own trail, obviously."

"Umm... swing a left at the next traffic lights," Lana suggested after a moment. "Might be better not to try that during a red light, or when there's any oncoming traffic. Then just follow the signs, it's maybe fifteen blocks and four lights."

"Alright," I said. "And will that take us towards Smallville?"

"You've got it, alien boy."

I shook slightly, reminded of how Maria used to call me 'spaceboy.' I was also somehow reminded of how close Lana and I had been to rebounding with each other when Mister Stmpy suddenly made his appearance. And what the hell did he want with us?"

"Hey, I have the blur on the line," Chloe suddenly reported over Lana's mike, as I made the turn. "He's super-speeding to your vicinity, and is asking about the other guy's clearance from you. You know why."

"Umm, let's see." Now Lana twisted around to look at the road behind us, but I knew that there was no way our pursuer could have made the turn and come into sight yet - or at least if he had, then we were in a lot more trouble than I'd known. "I'm not sure, maybe ninety feet?"

"That's a bit iffy for safe engagement, under the circumstances."

"Yeah, well - we're about to swing onto the freeway, hopefully we can get more clearance then."

"Okay, I'll check in again in four minutes," Chloe reported, and then apparently turned her attention to something else.

"There's something that I don't really understand," I said. "The blur - this is your exboyfriend, right?"

"How did you guess that?" Lana asked.

"Putting two and two together, more or less. You said that Clark couldn't come to save you - he could help me if you weren't here, but not you. And Chloe's mentioned a few times that the blur can't fight this guy if you're nearby. So - exactly why can't Clark get close to you, not even if it's a question of saving your life?"

"Hmm." Lana mulled that over for a moment. I got a red at the last traffic lights before the interstate on-ramp, and couldn't speed through because there were other cars already charging towards the intersection. "It's a question of the danger to Clark's life, actually, He's proof against most things, but he does have a weakness, and right now, I'm literally a part of it."

"Meteors, and meteor rock radiation," I muttered. "Is this suit powered by - you called it Kryptonite once right?"

"Okay, first, how did you figure out that meteor rocks were his vulnerability?" Lana snapped. "I've mentioned them to you, yes, but not anything that related to their impact on Clark, and I'm not sure I believe that Chloe would have told you that either."

I took a moment before answering, partly because I could take the excuse of merging onto the six-lane highway. "No, Chloe didn't tell me in so many words."

"Oh - this was another of these memories that you stole out of her head?" Lana grumped.

"Yes, and one that didn't occur to me until you mentioned him having a weakness. The suit?"

"No, it's not kryptonite powered, but that's probably a small distinction," Lana put in. "It was designed to absorb and retain Kryptonite radiation, and I did just that, as a matter of life and death. But now I'm stuck, literally - I'm stuck with this suit bonded to my skin, and it's just stuffed full of kryptonite energy that it'll keep around just about forever. So I can do nearly anything I set my mind to - except get close to Clark again. How's that for a tragicly stupid breakup tale?"

Something about that hit me like I'd been punched in the gut. "You - you mean, you didn't split up for any other reason, just because of an incompatibility between his alien allergies and this 'suit' thingee that you can't take off any more?" Lana nodded. "Why did you put it on in the first place, anyway? Just to keep your other ex from getting super-powers?"

"It's a more complicated story than that," Lana said, sighing. "Can you see it behind us?"

"No - and I can't hear his tread anybore." I wasn't sure why I was referring to the bad guy as a 'he' and not an 'it' at this point. "Do you want to call Chloe, or wait for her to check in with us?"

"It probably won't hurt us to wait just a bit longer," Lana decided in a troubled whisper.

----------

"Hi there," Chloe called over the mike. She and Lana weren't bothering with the code names any longer, Michael realized, and wondered when they'd been declared superfluous. "The blur has tackled with our mister Ugly, one time, fight was a split decision, but the bad guy is apparently not so easy to find now."

"Huh - I wouldn't have thought that an alien so big, gray, and spiny would be inconspicuous." I muttered.

"Thank you for your thoughts, Mister Guerin. Ever given any thought to the possibility that he's not ALWAYS so big, gray, and spiny?" Chloe followed up.

For a second I was speechless, surprised that Chloe had been able to hear me. And then it occured to me that Lana might have hit the 'talk' button on her phone, about to say something herself, and then stopped when I'd jumped into the conversational gap, her finger still on the button. With a very small effort I got my thoughts in line to address her question. Considering what Ed Harding had pulled off, (and Kal Langley had said about his talents before he'd given up shape changing for good,) "Yeah, I suppose that's a possibility. Which leaves open the question of what this guy is doing if he's NOT tromping down the street towards us with all of the subtlety of an elephant."

There was an awkward pause, and then Lana raised the phone to her face and paraphrased my reply to Chloe, giving me full credit and blame for having originated my own remarks. "Yeah, that's a good question, Michael, and I don't have any answers. Respectfully suggest that the two of you do continue on to Smallville and stay there for the night, trying to keep your guard up for - well, for anything unusual. I do want to get this guy off the streets, and it seems that first we'll need to figure out just what his story is, and the two of you are the best lead in that direction."

"Great, so now we're monster bait?" Lana asked. "You know that I don't like being any kind of bait, Chloe."

"Well, suck it up, we all have to take on jobs that we don't like," Chloe shot back.

"We're a small army," I muttered, quoting a quip that Max had once made to Isabel. "We've each gotta wear many hats."

Lana shot a somewhat dirty look over at me, but didn't comment out loud. "Okay," I continued. "Any idea where we can go, once we get to Smallville?"

Lana chuckled. "You know, I've completely lost track of who's living over the Talon right now - if Lois is there or not. I think that she movied out, so that Chloe and Jimmy could have the place to themselves once they got married, and then Jimmy got - well, you know. So if Chloe's back in Metropolis, she probably won't mind if we crash there, as long as no aliens completely trash the place, you know. Which, really, I wouldn't be that wild about either, being that I'm the landlady."

"Gotcha," I agreed. "I promise not to trash so much as a snack food wrapper. Well, maybe that."

Lana sighed. "I wasn't really talking about you, but I guess the spirit of that sentiment does reassure me."

-----------

Once we were up in the little apartment above the coffee shop, the vibe got somewhat strained. To put it fairly bluntly, I was feeling horny and hoping that I'd be able to get some sort of action while we waited, but wasn't at all sure how Lana would react to any moves I made in that direction, given the situation. As I stared at the girl, thinking of how much I'd like to kiss her again and more, suddenly something occured to me that maybe I could possibly work with. "Hey, you tore your skirt somewhere back there."

"Huh?" Lana turned and looked down at her legs, which she didn't seem to find nearly as fascinating as I did, and saw the small bit where the thick and dark brown fabric had been ripped apart. I had no notion of when that could have happened without her noticing it, but the damage had obviously been done. "Dammit, this skirt was my favorite piece all year."

I smiled. "Let me try something, Lana. Take a seat." I gestured towards a comfortable arm chair in the apartment's living room, and Lana relaxed a bit warily into it, stretching both of her feet out to take the weight off of them completely. As an afterthought, she started to squirm her legs around a little until she had managed to pry each high-heeled shoe completely off with the toe of the other foot, and kicked the offending foot wear off onto the top of the coffee table. "Okay, I'm ready." So was I, and feeling more aroused than ever after that little show.

"All right." Continuing with the part of the scene that I had planned out, I knelt down near the foot of her chair, and examined the torn part of the skirt. It wasn't actually fake leather as I had thought at first, maybe some kind of somewhat thick lycra-poly blend, which might partly explain how it had ripped apart so easily, though I don't really think of lycra as fragile. But I was pretty sure that I could work with this.

Using my fingers to bring the torn edges closer together, I exerted my powers on the fabric, sensing the molecular chains that made it up, and the places where those chains had been seperated. Matching up the loose ends correctly was the most difficult part of a repair like this - they weren't necessarily arranged in the same ways as they had been when the cloth had been undamaged, and though a few mismatches could be made in the mending without any obvious effects on the final result, too many would lead to an obvious scar, along which the skirt would be prone to pull apart again.

Trying to match the tens of thousands of fibers by close inspection and deliberate deduction was self-defeating. The only way to get something like this right was by instinct and getting an intuitive sense of the pattern of the whole. It was only half a minute or so before I was convinced that I had it.

As I repaired the skirt, I also sneakily touched Lana's skin in that vicinity with my powers, though I was careful not to actually let our skin make contact - yet. But - well, with Maria, I had learned an awful lot about deliberate stimulation of the pleasure nerves through Antarian abilities, and I wasn't scrupulous at all about using that trick on an unsuspecting Lana Lang. I was careful to keep the threshold of stimulation low enough that she might not be sure if she was feeling it at first, and definitely not too high that she would be sure it was intentional as opposed to a side effect of the other job I was in the middle of it.

Once the tear had closed up to nothing, though, I looked up and realized that Lana was staring back at me with a very knowing look. "What do you think of my work?" I asked as innocently as I could manage.

"Very nice piece of business, Michael Guerin," she told me. "But tell me - is it always so stimulating to be near alien powers in action."

"What? Did you feel something - unusual?"

"Well, yes, rather indeed. It was as if... as if you were making love to my calves." The look on her face was becoming mischievous, which I had to hope was actually a good sign.

"As far as I can tell, that's completely, normal," I told her, probably a bit more glibly than I'd meant to, but I couldn't really help myself. "Sorry that I didn't warn you beforehand."

"Yeah, right, sure." Suddenly Lana pushed herself forward and stood, stretching herself high above me, since I was still kneeling. "Just what is it that you want with me, Michael Guerin. Tell me without holding anything back, please."

Okay, well, if she was asking for it. "I want to make love to all of you," I admitted. "I'm not sure if I'm falling for you at all, or if it's just the rebound, but I want you so badly that I can pretend for a night that it's eternal love. I could do things to you, and for you, that are so naughty and so nice that there aren't words to describe them."

Lana raised an eyebrow. "I have to admit that that sounds - really great, at the moment. I just have one question about that plan."

"What happens if our friend from back on Brantford Avenue suddenly pops up again without warning?" I asked, and Lana nodded somberly. "Well, frankly I'm not sure that he's so likely to follow us here to Smallville without your friends spotting him in time to warn us, and even if it happens, so what? It's surprising how quickly you can go from 'in flagrante' to being fight-ready if you're not too inhibited to battle for your life naked - and I'm actually speaking from experience there."

"Really?" Lana smirked as I finally regained my feet in an erect position. "You'll have to tell me about that, some other time. First, though, let's get naughty."

And she kissed me, as hot as the hottest desert sunset I'd ever seen. Things proceeded quickly from there.

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

"See, nothing attacked us," I mumbled, lying in the double bed and afterglowing.

"Speak for yourself - oh wait, you pretty much were," Lana giggled. "I definitely feel like I was assaulted, in the best possible way, though. Just so it's clear, I'm not complaining."

"Right. Out of curiosity, was your other alien boyfriend that good in bed?"

"Hey, come on, that's not really a fair comparison," Lana snapped, sounding a bit offended. I looked over and was about to open my mouth to apologize. "I... I loved Clark very much, and I'm pretty sure that we don't have that between us, not yet. Let's see... I could always feel the tremendous strength and vitality of Clark, his raw power, when we were together, even if we were just kissing. I loved that, and the sensation that he was holding himself back so tenderly, never willing to even take a chance of letting go too much and hurting me by accident. But - but he never made my skin come alive like you do when you touch it, or gave me an orgasm quite like that. You're obviously very talented, and... and I'm glad you wanted to share such pleasure with me. If we get a chance, we should definitely do it again sometime. After I've had a chance to recover."

"Sounds good to me," I said. "Anything I can do to help you get your strength back up? Food, or just stand watch for gray guys while you sleep?"

"Food does sound good, but let me help raid Chloe's kitchen," Lana decided, standing up completely nude, and I gasped in wonder all over again. "Come on."

I felt a little weird getting up out of bed in a stranger's apartment wearing nothing but my 'hatching suit', but at the same time it seemed almost rude to scramble into clothes when Lana was comfortable with both of us 'au naturel.' She waited at the bedroom doorway for me, and I wrapped an arm affectionately around her shoulders. Something small shocked me as we walked down the hallway. "So when you talk about not being able to take off the 'suit' - does it replace your skin now, or is it blended into it, or something like that?"

"Yeah, it's integrated," Lana admitted reluctantly. "I don't really follow all of the technical details. Why?"

"Well, I just got a sense of something - not quite human, only skin-deep. Different DNA. It's astounding really, though - your skin reacted exactly like it was human, as far as I could tell, all the way through..."

"Well, you're one to talk," Lana pointed out. "I was looking for for anything that didn't seem like a real boy when you stripped down, and didn't spot anything. Do all intelligent alien species look exactly like human beings, I wonder? Kryptonians do, as far as I've been able to tell - they have different abilities, but not different appearances."

"Antarians don't, in general, as far as we've been able to work out," I remarked, stepping into the apartment's kitchen and opening a cupboard in search of some edibles. Useful dishes, but nothing else. I grabbed a few plates and a bowl just in case, then closed it. "They're humanoid in general outline, but different ranges of skin tones, hair, some different eye colors, and unusual face shapes - a bit like the aliens that makeup artists dream up for star trek and shows like that, actually. But my Roswellian 'friends' and I - we're not pure Antarian, we're human hybrids, and were specifically designed to 'pass' for humans, down to our skeletal and organ structure, though a cellular examination can still expose us as being alien."

"Well, that's nice to know," somebody put in from the kitchen door nearest the foyer of the apartment. "I think I'd still prefer a bit less of a visual examination, of both of you, because it's exposing quite enough."

Lana jumped slightly and dropped a heavy glass pitcher full of juice. I reached out with my powers and caught it just before it hit the ground, suddenly enough that liquid sloshed out and covered Lana's ankles. "Umm, hi Chloe, so sorry to - we didn't expect you to be getting back home so soon..."

"Well, I've had a long day, and I wanted to catch some shut-eye," Chloe pointed out. "In my own bed. Will I need to change the sheets first?"

"I can do a pretty decent housekeeping job for you," I suggested. "Unless you have a problem with that."

"Give it a try, and don't tell me the details of process, I'll judge you on the results," she snapped. "Lana?"

Lana closed her eyes, concentrated - and suddenly she was wearing a nearly see-through cotton t-shirt and equally skimpy and clingy shorts. "Hmm... I guess that's about as much as I can manipulate. Is it any better than nothing?"

"A little," Chloe sighed. "I'd be more comfortable with real clothes, though."

It was a few minutes before I had finished vaporizing the evidence of our leisure activities from the bed and dressed myself again, and by that point Chloe and Lana were talking over glass beer steins full of thick hot chocolate. Somewhat to my surprise, Lana hadn't donned any of the same wardrobe she'd been wearing earlier in the evening, but had apparently borrowed a black sleeveless t-shirt and baggy blue jeans from Chloe's closet, instead of putting her sweater and skirt back on. I couldn't guess at the reasons why, and possibly it didn't really matter.

"So, what news from Watchtower?" I asked. "Any sign of our big bad alien?"

"Are you sure that he's an alien?" Chloe asked me, alert interest in her eyes. "As opposed to - I don't know, a Meteor rock mutant, or even somebody's crazy robot?"

"Do you get a lot of people's crazy robots in Kansas?"

"Not a lot - just enough, I'd say," Lana put in. "And a few really crazy variants, like Brainiac, who was an alien computer who could assume a form that could walk around, which probably makes him robotic by at least a few definitions." She cocked her head. "I know this is a long shot, but is it at all possible that Brainiac could assume a form this big and tough-looking?"

"Brainiac - is - toast," Chloe said slowly and distinctly. "I know that we've said that before, but I'm really convinced this time. There's not a single circuit left of him... aside from the sample that the Legion members took with them, and they're keeping it in their time, the thirtieth century."

"Wait a second?" I put in. "Are you pulling my leg? You had visitors from over nine hundred years in the future?"

"Yeah, what's your point?" Chloe asked. Lana also looked a little blank, so I figured that she hadn't heard about this part either, and was just letting Chloe handle her explanations. (Except that she hadn't really explained much to me.)

"From Earth's future?"

"Well, sort of. Humanity's sort of spread out to other planets by that time, and a good thing too if you ask me."

I decided to stop asking stupid questions. If Max could have come back from fifteen years in his future to find Liz when she was still in junior year, then presumably other people could open up wormholes in space-time or whatever. And if humanity still had a future in the thirtieth century, then presumably whatever Future Max had done worked.

"Okay, so they have time-travel technology in the thirtieth century," Lana pointed out. "Isn't it at least slightly possible that that little scrap of Brainiac could have broken out of whatever the Legion was doing to confine it, stolen the time-travel tech, and come back to our time to bother Clark again?"

"Maybe - but Mister Gray didn't come after Clark."

"It wouldn't be the first time that Brainiac used me to get to Clark." Lana shuddered, an uncomfortable look on her face.

"Okay, we'll put that in a maybe column - but dressing up as a tall, gray, and scary alien doesn't really seem like Brainiac's usual MO, as far as I can tell. Maybe regrowing from a small fragment would change that." Chloe sighed, also seeming uneasy.

I sat down awkwardly on a kitchen chair, feeling like I was missing something because I'd never tangled with this Brainiac thing directly. "Okay, meanwhile - what can you tell me, Chloe?"

"There's still no sign of our... hostile friend," Chloe said. "Clark found some traces of a heavy tread going down the roads where you reported being chased by him - and a few car accidents, one or two eyewitnesses. And then the trail goes completely cold. It definitely looks like he could either teleport, fly, turn into smoke..."

"Or turn into an ordinary human form, who can walk around without denting the concrete, and be seen without attracting attention," Lana suggested.

"Yeah, that's pretty much it," Chloe agreed. "Clark will probably be patrolling Metropolis all night, but I didn't feel up to being his backup girl this time. What do the two of you think that your next move is - aside from possibly doing a round two anywhere but my bed?"

I shot a look over at Lana, and she shrugged. "Well, we should probably stay away from Metropolis until morning, just in case, though the caution is probably unwarranted." Both of the girls shot me sidelong looks at this point. "Yes, caution is not really a foreign concept to me, although I don't tend to react well to somebody else trying to browbeat me with their own. As far as where exactly we lay low for the night - I don't really know what the options are. Certainly don't want to be underfoot as you're trying to relax, but..."

"If Clark isn't going to be using it, we could always go to the farmhouse," Lana put in mischievously.

"No," Chloe told her firmly. "I said that Clark would probably be out patrolling Metropolis all night, but I can't really be sure. Don't want to risk him super-speeding too close to you and then be hit with kryptonite sickness too hard to either let you know that he's there or get away." She sighed and got up. "I have a twin bed in the spare room, and a couch out in the living room. You can fight for who gets which, or squeeze onto the same one for all that I car. I'm going to bed now."

I looked over at Lana as Chloe got up, and she raised those skinny eyebrows of her into an even higher arch.

We were both inside the spare bedroom about a minute later.

TO BE CONTINUED...

[Chrisken]

Part Four

The first thing I felt was a pillow hitting my chest and bouncing along to lie on my face.

I shook it off and groaned, trying to wake up. There were lights on, too bright to really look at yet. "What the hell?"

"Coffee is served, Mister Guerin," Chloe Sullivan snapped. "And you'd better get yourself dressed and moving, too. Oliver's going to be back in Metropolis later in this morning, and he's agreed to a lunch meeting with your sorry self."

"Uhh, really?" I muttered, wishing that I could come up with something wittier. It was still taking a little while to come to terms with the memories of yesterday - Queen Industries, Davis Bloom, my several run-ins with Chloe, breaking into Maria's new apartment, with Lana...

Right. Lana.

"Umm, is Lana still around?" I asked, hoping that didn't sound too obvious or whatever. It seemed clear that she was no longer in bed next to me.

Chloe chuckled. "She beat you into the shower a few minutes ago. Of course, you might want to try joining her - I wouldn't be the best one to guess if she's up for something like that."

I considered that as I sat up and tried to force my eyes open again. "That's tempting. But if time is short, maybe I'd better head into the kitchen for coffee first, instead. How late is it?"

"Only eight thirty or so," Chloe answered. "We've got plenty of time to make it into Metropolis for Oliver's thing."

"Does we include Lana?" I pressed. "I mean, I know that she and her ex have to be careful about getting too close to each other, because of some weird meteor-rock thing and her suit."

"Yeah, well." Chloe looked away as I got out of bed and started hunting for my pants. "Lana hasn't said anything about coming back to Metropolis with us, including asking me to co-ordinate with Clark. However, as far as I can tell, he's done a pretty good job of steering clear of her for the past few weeks whenever she's been in town - as long as he's not chasing down mysterious gray aliens."

"So he just, what - feels a Kryptonite cramp coming on or whatever, and heads off in the other direction?" I asked. Chloe shrugged. "You can look now, I'm more or less decent."

"Okay, then follow me, decent boy." And she walked out of the spare room, still not sparing me a glance. I shrugged, and headed off to the kitchen for a mug of good black coffee.

I was in the middle of my refill, and picking at a bowl of dry cereal, wishing that there was more milk, when Lana showed up, wearing designer label jeans, black running shoes, and a skimpy black top. Her hair looked completely dry and falling in a mass of curls past her shoulders. She took my breath away, but the thought that ran through my mind was 'she can change her image completely from one day to the next - just like Maria does.' Once I realized that I was comparing the two of them, all I could really manage was a weak smile of greeting and a wave in the direction of the only unused coffee cup on the kitchen table.

Once Lana had finished loading her cup down with the rest of the creamer and several misshapen lumps of brown sugar, I managed to clear my throat and speak up. "So, Chloe tells me that she's gotten me my appointment with Mister Queen, in Metropolis for lunch. Will you be coming along, Lana?"

"Well, I hadn't decided," Lana admitted. "May I take your question as an invitation?"

"Um, sure, it's fine with me if you come along - I'd like that, even," I said. "Not sure if I'll need your services as tour guide from here on, but after all this, you're more than that to me."

"Well, yeah, I should hope so, I think," Lana pointed out, and I cringed just a bit at what I'd said. Why was it so hard for me to put into words how I felt about Lana? Well, maybe partly because I was far from sure about the specifics myself, and Chloe being around wasn't helping.

"Okay, here's another question for you," Lana said. "What's your next step? I mean, talking to Oliver might be a bit of a wild card, I realize that, but assuming that lunch goes however you'd want it to. Where to then?"

"Ahh." I thought hard about how to explain this one. "All I wanted to do when I came to Metropolis was speak my piece with Oliver Queen. I'm not sure I realized what my piece would be when I first came, but I do now, and it's probably best for Maria if I head back to New Mexico once things are settled between Queen and I. I've accomplished a few things that I hadn't planned on too, including learning a bit about how the Justice League works... and meeting you. But my place isn't here in Kansas, Lana. I've got a job and friends to get back to in Roswell."

"Yeah, I understand," Lana insisted. "Figured that that might be the score, but I needed to ask and hear it from you."

"You need to hear this from me too, I think - how about coming for a visit? Tonight, or some other time after you've taken care of your loose ends, whatever. I realize that it might be a bit of a surprising idea - but I kind of get the sensation that you're at loose ends in Metropolis and not sure what to do there - aside from spend time with old friends with Chloe, which is good, but..."

"But it's hardly a life," Lana admitted, smiling. "You've got a deal, Michael Guerin - I'm not sure of the details on when I'll get to Roswell, or how long I'll be staying, but wild aliens couldn't keep me away."

"Just so long as you don't think you're joking when you say things like that," I said.

"Hmm... I guess I'll have to hear more about that one."

I made a big show of raising my mug and taking a big long satisfied swallow, but there was only a little dribble in there that made a kind of slurpy noise as it disappeared down my throat. Chloe snickered, and even Lana got a big smile on her face. "Okay, Miss Chloe Sullivan, do you have anything to add to the conversation at this point?"

"Not really - the two of you seem to have settled things quite well without the need for my meddling," she said. "Lana, remember that Michael and some of his friends are desirable League recruits, so give them all the best impression, right?"

"Yeah, yeah, of course I won't do anything to embarrass you, Watchtower," Lana shot back, rolling her eyes for my benefit.

"Oh, that reminds me of one thing," I said. "Any way that I can get some face time with this alien ex-boyfriend of Lana's, who I gather is one of the League's 'most valuable players?'"

Lana shrugged, as if to underscore the point that she was the last one who could speak on behalf of her ex now, which of course I already knew, and I actually pointed my finger at Chloe to make it clear that she was the one I was asking.

Chloe took a seat in silence and then a deep breath. "As it happens, I thought that you might be curious about that and mentioned you to Clark last night, Michael. He's a bit interested in getting to know you, and your Roswellian friends, too - but he's also been burned by close encounters with other aliens before. Of course, none of us think that you're evil or anything like that, but still - I think it's going to take Clark more than just today to get comfortable with the idea of saying hello. When he's ready, though, and if you guys are okay with the timing, he can be in Roswell in three seconds flat."

"Useful talent," I said. "Anything I could do to reassure him?"

"Maybe pass the word to Maria if you feel comfortable with the idea of her talking about you?" Chloe suggested. "She's been very tight-lipped about her alien friends in Roswell - to everybody but Oliver at least, and he's been keeping her confidences well. Clark knew that there were aliens in Roswell, and that Maria knew some of them, but really no other details. So it was hard for him to know what to think when you suddenly came to town."

"Yeah, I can see where that'd be a shocker," I said. In a way, it was surprising that Maria had been so hush-hush about us in front of these people who knew about other aliens, but then, I'd have been pissed at her if she really had blabbed, so whatever.~~ "Well, I hadn't planned on seeing Maria, but maybe I can pass her a message via Oliver, or something."

"Oh." Chloe flushed slightly. "Not seeing your ex at lunch - might be a problem, Michael."

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

I sulked in the booth - which would have worked much better if the sides of the seats went higher than three feet. "I'm not sure why I'm going through with this - Oliver could make time for me later in the afternoon."

"I think part of it might be that you do really want to see Maria, and talk with her for a moment, even though you told yourself you didn't," Lana suggested. "And... no, it couldn't possibly be that there's a little part of you that's afraid of how she's going to react to seeing you again."

"Don't push the psych student crap," I told her, but couldn't keep a scowl on for long, so it sort of turned into a half-smile or something. I sipped at my snapple, and Lana drank from a big cappucino mug, and soon enough this tall blond guy who looked like a surfer dude dressed up in a business suit stepped up onto the simple stage in the corner of the fancy coffeehouse.

"I'd like to thank you all for coming," he started. "And I know that it's not me that anybody's here to see, so with no further ado - LexRecords' hottest new artist, Maria DeLuca!"

When the woman with the honey-brown hair stood up near the stage, I took a moment staring and wondering 'is that really her, after all of this time?' But when I caught a glimpse of Maria's face in profile, there was no doubt. Her hair was longer than it had been when she'd said goodbye to me in Roswell - was she wearing extensions again, or was it natural growth? The outfit, surprisingly, was one that I recognized from her days playing little clubs in Albuquerque, when she was still in university - an ankle-length black skirt with a white snowflake pattern on it, black leather shoes, and a bright yellow halter top. She picked up an accoustic guitar, took it up to the stage, and kissed the guy who had introduced her before settling on the stool in front of the microphone stand. The guy was Oliver Queen, then, and he was heading towards my booth instead of sitting down near the stage. Maria quickly tuned up, and then started a song that I hadn't heard before.

"Don't lie to me, 'cause I've been there, and I know every line.
Don't cry for me. It's not pity that draws you to by side.
The scars on this heart weren't bought. They're earned.
Taking the hard road is the way that I've learned."

"It's nice to meet you, Mister Queen," I said as the surfer boy came close. "I thought that you wouldn't be back in town until tomorrow."

"Well, my plans often change at short notice - Mister Guerin," Oliver said, dropping down into the seat beside me.

"Life is a dance, and the soul is a wheel.
And true hearts will always be broken.
You can mend what's shattered, and the wounds will heal.
If only the truth is spoken."

"You've gone to a lot of trouble to say hello to me," Oliver prompted, as Maria finished the chorus. The thing was, I didn't really want to say what I had to say while she was singing. Hearing Maria perform always hit me that way, back to the first time that I'd heard her do karaoke at the Pizza Pan. I shrugged helplessly, and Oliver nodded an acceptance and focused his own attention at the lovely lady up on stage. His lovely lady, now.

"Don't hide your eyes. Don't protect me when pain leaves its mark.
Wear no disguise. I can't find you if you leave me in the dark.
The scars on your heart are a tragic design.
Faith in tomorrow can erase every line."

I tried to catch Lana's eye as the chorus repeated, but she'd turned around to watch Maria sing too. Whatever I felt about Lana, it wasn't a match for all of the history that I had shared with Maria - at least, not yet. I needed to be careful to not scare Lana off with all of that baggage, if I wanted to give the two of us a chance to get there, but - hopefully she'd understand about how much this was affecting me. As I'd said, it hadn't been my idea to come for the show.

I'd expected some sort of a bridge before the song ended, but there wasn't one I guess. Maria repeated the last line in the chorus, "If only the truth is spoken," and then finished with a bit of an acoustic guitar solo before people started to clap.

"Okay, so here's the thing," I said, turning to Oliver. "I still love Maria, I'd want her back if I could, but she's made her choice and I'm not going to try and make things difficult for her. I wish her all of the best with you, but - well, we've got to the point where I tell you what a lucky son-of-a-bitch you are and how well you'd better treat her, right?"

"Oh really?" Oliver raised one eyebrow. "Have we got to that bit?"

"Yup."

"Well, you should know that I'm treating Maria with more respect than I've probably treated any girl in my life. I love her, I'm actually letting it show, and she's made it clear that she has absolutely no complaints."

"That's a good start," I admitted grudgingly. "I think that she might be willing to cut you a few breaks that I'm not, though, particularly in the vein of keeping her safe."

"Oh, really?" Oliver said.

"Yeah, like Chloe's wedding, for instance. I know that you brought her along as your date, and I know that some hellish creatur from who-knows-where trashed the reception. If Maria wasn't hurt, that's still what I'd label a close call."

"It was," Oliver agreed. "But there are some times when you just can't predict that something will come out of the black and take a run. I'm a bit of a danger magnet, some of my friends are too. But then, I don't think that spending so much time with you and your friends from Roswell was exactly the safest life, Michael. I will protect Maria to the best of my ability in whatever situation presents itself, I'll put my own life on the line to save hers if it comes to that. And I'll do what I can to keep her out of any danger that I see coming. But I'm not going to keep my distance from her based on a general danger-magnet factor. Is there anything else you're asking of me?"

There wasn't really, and he was being more reasonable than I was. So the hell with it. "If she gets a scratch because of dating you, guess what?"

"You're welcome to try, bud. If I think that you're being unreasonable, I'm not giving you a free shot, though."

"Are the two of you quite done with the macho stuff?" Lana put in. "Good, because the object of all this rivalry is coming over."

~~I looked around, over the back of the booth, and sure enough, Maria had looped around the room and was approaching us from the opposite direction to the stage. She noticed me looking, and the rhythm of her steps was interrupted for a fraction of a second as she hesitated, then continued up to the table. "Hi, Michael. It's... good to see you, after all this time."

There was something in her voice that I recognized from my own sometimes - that moment where you start saying something with the intention of it being a little white lie, only to find out it's the sincere truth. Maria hadn't been looking forward to meeting me again, any more than I'd expected to talk to her when I was in Metropolis, but the reality wasn't as tough as either of us had expected. A little awkward, sure, but...

"Yeah, definitely," I agreed, as Lana shifted over to give Maria a space to sit in across from Oliver. "That song was beautiful - did you just write it recently?"

Maria made a face. "No, it's not one of mine. LexRecords has me doing the rounds with music publishing houses, and as much as I used to make a fuss about writing all of my music - it's not quite so cut and dried. There's a lot of great songs out there, music that I honestly *wish* that I'd written, like Truehearts. The original songwriter tried to give it the audience that it deserved, singing it herself, and that didn't work out. Maybe I can do better by it."

"Well, best of luck," I told her. "You look great - Metropolis seems to agree with you."

"Yeah, yeah, I'm doing okay out here," she said. "Is that why you came to Kansas, Michael? Just to see if I'm hotter here than I was in New Mexico?"

Oliver snickered, and Lana and I both smiled. "That was a part of it," I said, "but there were some other important things for me to find out about here. So listen - there's one of Oliver's friends, and I think that you know the one I mean."

"Yeah, umm... okay, yeah?"

"He wanted to know more about me and the Roswell gang, and you haven't been sharing much."

"ALL of Oliver's friends want to know more about the Roswell gang," Maria admitted with a secretive smile.

"Okay, you can probably use your own judgement as far as who might need to know what, right?"

"Are you authorizing me to share club secrets, Michael?" Maria's voice was teasing, but the way her eyes speared me with an intense stare was not. "Did you run that decision by Max and Liz?"

"You know me, Maria. Would I leave a big decision like that up to our best friends?"

"Okay, umm." Maria shook her head and looked down for a moment. "So, is there some significance in the fact that we're joined by a fourth? Not that I mind you coming out by any means, Miss Lang - it just wasn't expected."

Lana turned to Maria and raised one eyebrow silently. I hesitated, realizing that I'd need to skirt the line between tact and fact here. "Lana volunteered her services as tour guide, after I'd got to Metropolis and when it looked like I wouldn't be able to talk to Oliver for a little while. We - well, we had some fun getting to know each other, and it looks like she might be dropping by Roswell for a visit."

"I - I see," Maria muttered, keeping her face carefully neutral. "How did the two of you manage to meet in the big city?"

"Not by chance," Lana volunteered. "Michael bumped into Chloe at Oliver's office yesterday, and she told me where to go looking for him."

"I see." Maria looked around. "Is there anything else that needs to be said?"

Nobody volunteered anything. "Come on, then, honey," Oliver said. "I wanted to introduce you to Doctor Jetterson."

"Yeah, of course," Maria said, breathing a little relieved sigh around her words. "Nice seeing both of you - Michael, Lana." She nodded at each of us as Oliver rose and offered her a hand.

"And is there anything else that you need to take care of in Kansas, Michael?" Lana asked me once they were gone.

"Just packing up my stuff at the motel," I said. "Then it's off to the bus station I suppose." We had returned the borrowed car from yesterday to the same spot as I'd taken it from - actually, Lana had driven it back alone, so that she could 'super-speed' away if necessary.

"Oh, no, come on, no Greyhounds for this trip," Lana said with a little smile. "I think that I can arrange a better ride."

I smiled back at her, liking the sound of that. "Does that mean that you'll be leaving for Roswell with me this afternoon?"

"Yeah, I've thought about it, and I don't have any loose ends here that I can't tie up in an hour or two either. As you subtly pointed out, I've been hanging around Metropolis for weeks now, with nothing to do here, but not ready to cut the final cord with Clark and leave him behind for real. It's time to step up and take action now."

"That sounds good to me," I said. "Whatever happens next, I can't wait to find out about it - with you."

----------

I woke up again with a hand gently shaking my shoulders. "What is it?" I complained. "It's not even light." As if to prove me wrong, something shined into my face and then went away. I realized that I'd been sleeping standing up, with some kind of strap locked around my waist, and...

"We're only a few miles from Roswell," Lana told me, and then I remembered the whole thing. We'd driven straight from Metropolis towards New Mexico, a trip of around thirteen hours, and agreed to take turns sleeping for as long as we could.

As my eyes acclimated to being open, I caught a glimpse of a sign next to the highway, reading '285-S', and I felt tears crowding my eyes that had nothing to do with irritation or light. Route two eighty five, heading south. That crazy first road trip that I'd dragged Maria on, had been the first time that I'd ever spent much time with her. I hadn't loved her yet, or even admitted that I liked her, but it had started both of us on our journey.

"I'm okay," I muttered, to reassure myself instead of Lana. As hard as it was to admit that my story with Maria as a couple was probably over, route two eighty five south was playing its part in the beginning of a new story now, one that was taking me back to Roswell instead of off chasing secrets far away.

"Stay on main street until you see the sign for Second avenue," I told Lana. "I know a little place that you've just got to try. They still make a killer Orbit burger."

THE END