Title: Two to One (A Vignette)

Disclaimers: I own none of the characters.

A/N: Here's the thing. I used to be a hard core Chlois (Chloe is Lois, not Chloe and Lois) fan. Now I've rethought my position (i.e. Chloe's annoyed me over the last few seasons whereas Lois has only gotten cooler and ED really rocks), but when I wrote this I was trying to find some way to fix the Chloe problem.

"No, God, no, that..." Chloe opened her mouth in a silent scream. As her body ripped itself from the inside out. "Clark... Cla..." She took a breath as some of the pain receded a bit. She closed her eyes, tears leaking out of them. "God, Clark, I need you so much right now..." Chloe took a deep breath and pushed herself up on the couch. "...but, he's not coming... So get off your self pitying jag Chloe and do what you have to do." She took another deep breath and pushed herself off the couch with a groan. She probably shouldn't have been released, but the hospital had been slammed and Chloe could fake wellness with the best of them.

Clark sat at the kitchen table with his head in his hands. "I don't know what to do Mom? I didn't think. I just. I flew, and caught the shuttle. I couldn't get away fast enough. They were clawing at me. Their mothers, fathers, children, cats, themselves, they had so many demands." He shook his head, "It's, saving people, it's ingrained in me. I was..."

Martha rubbed her son's back, "It will be okay."

Clark rubbed at his eyes, "Nothing will ever be right Mom. Lois is... for all intents and purposes, dead. Chloe is dying. I saved a shuttle from crashing, but at what price. Why couldn't I save Chloe and Lois too?"

"Because even you can't be in two places at once son." Martha continued rubbing Clark's back, "One thing we will figure out is how you can be you, and still have a regular life."

Clark stood and stared out the kitchen window. "I have to... I got the Planet job. Clark Kent, mild mannered reporter can't be saving people's lives."

Martha stood as well, "That reminds me. Chloe called, she wanted you to stop in before you went back to Metropolis if you had the time."

Clark turned back towards his mother, "Is she doing any better? At all?"

Martha shook her head, "Last time I visited her, she was in pain, a lot of pain, but hiding it well." Martha shook her head, "She's not dying, but she's..." Martha paused, "She'll love seeing you."

Clark took a deep breath, "Hopefully, no one in Smallville has watched GNN lately." Clark leaned down and gave Martha a peck on the cheek. "I'll be back before dinner I think."

Martha walked Clark to the door, "Take your time with Chloe Clark." Martha smiled, "Make the poor girl smile a little." Clark nodded.

Chloe stopped in front of a window and checked herself in the reflection. She shook her head and pushed back a strand of blonde hair. She glanced around as she pushed open a pair of swinging doors. A nurse greeted her. "Miss Sullivan. You're looking well."

Chloe took a deep breath, "Thank you Marie. Has General Lane been by?"

"Large fellow who marched in here when Miss Lane first came to us, ordering everyone around as if he were the General of this unit?" Chloe nodded with a small smile, "Not lately."

Chloe took a breath. This was the keystone to her whole plan. "I'd like to take her, take Lois outside. Sit with her a bit."

Marie nodded immediately, "Yes, yes, it is beautiful out today. Let me get Tora up to cover the desk and I'll help you get her outside."

"Thanks, thank you so much Marie."

Clark walked around the back of Chloe's apartment building and frowned. "Chloe?" He focused intensely on the building, then the basement. He shook his head when he didn't find her and sat down on one of the lawn chairs. A hurf echoed in the silence as he opened his cell phone and scrolled through his address book until he found Chloe's number. He hit send. It rang, and rang, and it seemed as though it would ring forever, but it finally went to voicemail. Clark closed the phone without leaving a message and closed his eyes. He heard a rasping whistle and looked up with surprise. He watched as a Red Tailed Hawk watched him right back. The hawk swooped down and landed in front of him. Clark wasn't that much of a bird person, but he was pretty sure that they didn't do that often. After a few minutes of the staring contest between man and bird the hawk went perfectly still before it took off towards the sky. Clark blinked and stood. "Of course..."

Chloe took a stuttering breath and hefted Lois to the ground. "This'd better work Lo... if it doesn't." Chloe stared at her cousin. Lois had never had a change. Her heart had been silent for too long when Clark... finally had gotten to her. Chloe gripped at her own heart, she still felt so guilty. Lois had been coming back from Metropolis to visit her, the cousin with the mysterious meteor rock illness. The tree didn't know what had been coming. Chloe shook her head, blonde hair flying everywhere and glanced at her final target. She had been bumming around after visiting Lois the last time, she hadn't really wanted to go home, and had almost fallen into a pit. She really had no idea how the slushified meteor rock would work on her, or Lois, but she had to try something. The guilt was nagging at her, the pain was killing her, and she was just tired.

Chloe bent down and dragged Lois up a few inches onto her back, "Oh," she took a deep breath and dragged her cousin a few more inches. She continued at what felt like a snail's pace until she gave one last oof and Lois was on her back. She stared at the pool, that shimmered like a un-ripe apple and plunged into the goop.

Clark opened the door and blinked in surprise. "Uh, Mom?"

Martha's head popped up from underneath a swath of blue and red material. "Yes?"

He picked up a piece of the fabric, "Is this spandex?" Martha held a hand up. "Mom, I had..."

"Wait, just wait for a minute Clark, okay?"

Clark lapsed into silence as he shook his head. Finally his mother came out from behind the mounds and handed Clark a bundle of material. "You can put it on. It will be a little..."

She trailed off as the phone rang, "Hello." Martha went white, "Are you sure. Is, do you know where Chloe is?"

This got Clark's attention. The bundle of blue flew towards Martha and she only nearly dropped the phone as she caught it. The screen door banged closed. "Thank you for calling us... ah, Marie, yes. I bet that she just wanted to get off the premises. Chloe is... unique."

As Martha hung up the phone Clark was back with a frown on his face, "Everywhere. They're not in Smallville. I could... Damnit, I should have... I..."

Martha put a hand on Clark's shoulder, "Clark, Chloe is a big girl."

"But, she's sick..."

Martha gave Clark her best motherly glare, "And if she heard you talking like that..."

Clark nodded, "She'd kick my ass. Sorry, I just... I'm a little on edge."

The blue bundle appeared in his hands, "Try this on..."

"But, Mom..."

Martha held up a hand, "Humor your old mama okay? What you need is a disguise."

"But... it's so tight..."

Martha smiled, "Maybe I've become a little touched after all these years in Smallville, but somehow, I think you'll make it work." Clark raised his eyebrows and shook his head as he climbed the stairs to his room.

Once there he put the blue bundle to one side and picked up the glasses that he had gotten when he had been blinded by his heat vision. He put them on and looked at his mirror. He took them off, then put them back on. "It could work... on an idiot..." He finally looked down at the blue bundle and after a second's pause spun into it. He looked in the mirror again and winced, "That's..."

"They won't be looking at your face..."

"Mommm..."

Martha smiled, "Sorry. Maybe if you slick your hair back when you're... in costume?"

Clark pushed his hair back, "Why not slick it when I'm Clark?"

Martha shrugged, "More aerodynamic? And people know Clark Kent with flowing unruly hair."

Clark turned and put on the glasses and ran a hand through his hair, "Clark Kent." He slicked back his hair and swept off his glasses. "Someone else..."

Martha shrugged, "I'm not the best one to ask Clark, I'm your mother. I'd know you in another's body."

Clark closed his eyes, "Don't tempt fate Mom. You really think it will work."

"Mild Mannered Reporter, Super human protector of planet Earth."

Clark rubbed his hand over the S on his chest.

"S... for Smallville. You'll keep us with you, always."

Clark moved over to Martha and gave her a hug. "Thank you Mom."

Martha hugged Clark to her with all her strength. "I love you Clark."

A hand came out from the ooze and grappled at the bank of the pit. Finally it got purchase and a second one joined it. Slowly a green covered definitely female body emerged from the ooze. She took a deep breath and wound up crouched on the ground hacking up more and more green ooze. After five or so minutes she tried to stand again, and took a test breath It seemed that her body had gotten rid of all the ooze it wanted to for the time being. She held a hand up in front of her face, "I..." She looked down and then looked back up, "Oh... naked, and... not myself." She felt at her head and brought a strand of hair into her sight range. "Brown... but short..." she ran a hand through her hair again and went over to where the wheelchair was. She shuffled through the bag hanging off of it until she found a hand mirror. She closed her eyes as she brought the mirror up, and after a second or two opened them.

"Hello there..." She tilted her head from side to side, "Little blonder here and there, a bit shorter." She let the hand drop to her side and brought the other up to her face. "What am I going to do now?"

Two Days Later

As Clark, in all his blue, red and yellow spandex'd glory, flew over Metropolis he realized that Metropolitans were very involved in their own worlds. Not one looked up. It's like he was just another bird, another plane in the sky. He heard yelling near the Daily Planet and dove for the ground.

Lois looked up into the beautiful blue sky, it was a different sky than Smallville's, busier, buildings were everywhere, and only here and there did patches of blue stick out. Lois ran a hand through her hair, she looked much more like Lois than Chloe, and so she had decided to go with her cousins name, though sometimes she wasn't her cousin, she was herself. It was sometimes annoying when she couldn't remember someone, or something about herself or the world, but it was happening less and less, and so far as she knew she hadn't forgotten anything direly important like her family, though there was something just at the edge of her awareness that she was sure was important that she couldn't remember. She'd remember it eventually, in the meantime Lois Joanne Chloe Lane was going to take Metropolis by storm.

Suddenly there was a flurry of activity. A man yelled that she needed to get out of the way, the sign was falling. She blinked, and was transfixed, she could see the point coming at her with amazing speed. A blue and red blur appeared and as long as it took to blink the sign was no where to be seen. She blinked again and was caught in strong arms before she fell to the ground. She was put upright again and turned. "Oh..."

"Miss, are you all right?"

"I'm..." Lois blinked and regained her inner journalist, "I'm Lois Lane."

Clark shrugged his cape out of the way and held out his hand. Lois and Clark shook hands. "I'm... a friend."

Lois tilted her head to one side with a half smile that made Clark blink, "A... friend? Who is faster than a speeding bullet? More like a Super friend..." She met Clark's eyes and Clark jerked as he looked into those eyes, it was Lois' body for sure, but as the silence stretched he swallowed, those were Chloe's eyes through and through. Clark blinked and looked away, "Or... maybe a Super... Man..."

Clark pointed at the sky, "I should..." Lois looked Superman up and down, "Yes, yes, and I have an interview in a half an hour..." Lois smirked, "I think I'm going to get this job..."

Clark took a breath as he slid into his desk and pulled up the obituary he had been working on. He shifted in his seat a bit. He was still getting used to wearing the suit under his suit. He looked up as someone exited the Editor's office. His jaw hit the floor as he stood. He walked over to the woman, "Lois?"

Lois looked back at Clark, and then looked him up and down, but shook her head, "Do I know you?"

Clark started to speak, but Perry White spoke instead, "This is Clark Kent, Mr. Kent, this is Miss Lane."

Lois held a hand out and Clark shook it, "Lois. I got the exclusive on Superman."

Clark pretended to blink in confusion, "Super Man?"

Lois smiled, "Read the paper, all will be revealed Mr. Kent." And she strutted away.

Fin - May 19th, 2006