The stars were beautiful tonight. Not a single cloud had come out to blemish the sky, and the stars shone like distant beacons intended not to warn, but to reassure. They were like millions of tiny porch lights, each one sending a message that said: “I am home.”

But Clark was not looking at the stars.

Instead his eyes were focused on the girl—no, the woman—before him, watching the amber light of his loft give a homey, earthen quality to her soft blonde hair that had once been cut above her chin, but now trailed down closer to her twin breasts, which he was trying valiantly not to stare at lest he set her shirt on fire.

Not that that would necessarily be a bad thing. He could always just blow out the flames. But then he’d be running the risk of her clubbing him over the head with a certain green rock.

Closing his eyes and breathing deeply, he let his hearing wander and came across a radio two miles away playing Coldplay’s “Yellow.” He smiled. He couldn’t have picked it better himself.

Look at the stars, look how they shine for you
And everything that you do
Yeah, they were all yellow

While Chloe would have rolled her eyes at the clichéd imagery, he couldn’t fault the singer for thinking that the stars shone for the sake of the woman he loved. It was what he’d thought of Lana for the longest time, and what he thought of Chloe now.

Yes, he was attracted to his best friend, the keeper of his secret. It wasn’t his fault she was such a good kisser. Not that it was anyone’s fault, per se. In fact it seemed to be a blessing from the gods that the person who knew some of the most important details of his life was also able to make him blush and release a flock of butterflies into his stomach on a yearly basis. Unlike Lana, Chloe had always managed to surprise him. She’d figured out his secret on her own after only an initial revelation from Alicia Baker, whose memory he was finding less painful by the day, like his strength slowly returned the farther he got away from Kryptonite.

It suddenly occurred to Clark as he made that comparison that pretty blonde girls who knew his secret were an even bigger danger to him than the irradiated fragments of his home planet. But unlike Alicia, Chloe never tried to take advantage of Clark beyond enlisting his help cleaning up her dorm room in less than a second or giving her a ride to the Planet when she was running late. And he knew that she had absolute control over him, superpowers or no. Jor-El had nothing on Chloe when it came to getting Clark to do what she wanted.

The reason for that, he realized now, was that the feelings that had led him to take Chloe to the spring formal had never fully left. They’d just been overshadowed by his affections for Lana, which had all but disappeared by now, replaced by aching guilt. Lana had left a crater in his chest when he’d fallen in love with her, but that had been alright then because she had still occupied that space. When she left, he felt barren. Now the only person who could make him forget that emptiness and fill the void was the short blonde reporter who had always had his back, even before she knew he was from another planet.

Your skin, oh yeah your skin and bones
Turn into something beautiful

Chloe had indeed turned into something beautiful. Actually, she’d been beautiful this whole time, he just hadn’t allowed himself to notice. It wasn’t just her body either, although he admitted that it was taking every ounce of superhuman restraint he had to keep from throwing her down on that couch and mounting her right now, which he knew she would allow him to do in a heartbeat. She had always loved him, after all.

No, it was her sharp journalistic mind, her incredible drive, her startling compassion, and her ability to take whatever the world threw at her and come out of any ordeal stronger than she’d been before that made his love for her run deeper than it had with anyone else. She was the anti-Lana. Lana had gotten everything in her life through pity. Clark couldn’t recall her ever having a single thing that wasn’t given to her as a gift. Even the Talon, the one mark of independence in her long streak of handouts, had only remained open so long because she had been so good at smooth-talking Lex.

Why had he loved her? He asked himself that constantly. He never voiced it to anyone, but it was always there, always gnawing at him like a termite threatening to destroy his foundation unless he gave it a satisfactory answer. He had never found one.

And you know,
For you I'd bleed myself dry
For you I'd bleed myself dry

It was true. He would bleed himself dry for Chloe, even if his blood hadn’t had the ability to raise people from the dead. Too bad it only worked for liver disease and not the heart, or else Jonathan Kent might still be with them. Having a Kryptonian presence in him had been what destroyed his father’s heart in the first place.

The death of his father had sent Clark to a place so dark it made the Phantom Zone look like Bermuda. It had taken a team effort from Chloe, Lois and his mother to pull him out of it. Lana hadn’t helped, not that it was her fault. He was the one who couldn’t tell her his secret. She reminded him that he was living a lie, adding to his already crushing guilt.

He’d eventually come out of it enough to where he could now go half a day without being reminded that his father died protecting his secret. But before he had, he’d resolved that he would be the only one to make sacrifices from now on.

Which had worked out just great. Lana was dating Lex, and Lionel and his mother were getting closer by the day. What was it about Luthors being attracted to the women he loved? Was it their way of getting back at him for all the trouble he’d caused? With Lex maybe, but Lionel had always envied Jonathan. Clark had to remind himself that what he wanted didn’t matter in situations like that. It was between the people involved.

Clark opened his eyes and looked at Chloe. She had always been more than enough to lift his spirits in the past, and now she was his last lifeline before he slid off into total depression. He wasn’t willing to let her go too.

He suddenly realized that she was waving at him. The song was over anyway, so he adjusted his hearing back to normal.

“…ark, hello? Do you and your memories want to be alone?”

Absolutely not. “Sorry,” he said, blushing. “I was somewhere else.”

She rolled her eyes. “Lana?”

“Actually, no. I was just thinking about how you’ve always been here to light up my day.”

A smile pulled at the edges of her lips. “Yes, well, this little light of yours is gonna go on back to the Planet if you keep letting all your senses wander. Remember, I gave up an evening with Jimmy for this.”

Right. Jimmy. In all his musings Clark had forgotten about the eager little photographer who had completely blindsided him just as he’d been ready to confess his desires to Chloe. He’d stepped back out of respect for Chloe’s right to choose who she dated, and he never shared with her the fact that she, not Lana, was the one person he’d wanted to see most after he escaped from the Phantom Zone. An Oscar-worthy kiss after years of unacknowledged sexual tension tends to make a person high on one’s list of priorities. But then Jimmy had to go and ruin it.

Still, Chloe had chosen to spend the evening with him over going out on another night where Jimmy all but kissed the ground she walked on, so that had to mean something, right?

“Right,” he said after several uncomfortable moments. “So where were we?”

She pointed to the page in front of her. Oh yeah. He’d been teaching her to read the Kryptonian symbols. He’d been a bit confused when she just came to the farm in the middle of the night and asked for immediate lessons, but he’d agreed. And so here they were.

Nodding to show that he remembered now, he pointed to the symbol that had been branded on Lana’s back two years ago. “That means Water. This one means Fire, and this one,” he pointed to the symbol that looked like the number eight inside an inverted pentagon, “means Air. It’s the symbol Jor-El burned into my chest three years ago when he told me to leave Smallville. He said it was the mark of my ancestors.”

“Ouch.”

He smiled painfully. “It hurt worse than being exposed to Kryptonite. And believe me, having your blood boil is not a pleasant experience.”

“I'll remember that,” she said. “So these are the three elements that made up your Fortress of Solitude, right?” He nodded. “Why not Earth?”

Clark raised an eyebrow.

“Right. You’re an alien,” she said as though she had actually forgotten that. “It’s just you act so human I sometimes fall back into thinking that you are.”

“Well I was raised by humans, so it’s not really an act,” said Clark. “Still, how do you manage to forget that when I’m teaching you how to read a language that’s not even from this planet?”

She laughed. He liked hearing her laugh. It kept the sad thoughts at bay. “I guess the last hour of studying has turned my brain into Jello like it always used to in high school. Even those of us who research stuff for a living need a break once in a while.”

“You’re doing great,” he encouraged.

Chloe smiled. Her smile was another thing he loved about her. “How did you learn all this?”

“I put the key in the cave wall and it downloaded me with the knowledge of my planet’s language.” He pointed to a newspaper clipping Chloe had saved from the Wall of Weird. Everything she owned that had Kryptonian symbols on it had been transported to Clark’s loft for this evening’s study session. The headline read: Aliens or Arsonists? “It was right before I burned that symbol into my barn.”

“At least it answers the headline,” she said. “Still, why couldn’t we have just done that?”

“Because the last person who tried it was Dr. Walden, and he ended up in a catatonic state.”

“Information overload?”

He nodded. “Apparently my brain was the only one that could handle it. Humans still have to learn it the old-fashioned way.”

“Stupid higher alien brain power,” Chloe grumbled. Clark laughed. “So what ended up happening to him?”

“He came to the day of Lex’s rehearsal dinner. Apparently he’d developed the ability to shoot energy from his hand, and he was able to use the key to amplify it. He almost killed me before I got him with heat vision and he accidentally blew up a fuel tank. I had to pry the key out of his hand.”

She grimaced; even though both she and Clark had been exposed to more death than anyone still sane ought to be, hearing about prying things from dead people’s hands was still disgusting to her. At least that meant she hadn’t gone crazy. Yet.

“Okay, so Chloe can’t learn kung fu just yet,” she said in her own bewilderingly cryptic way.

Clark tilted his head.

She sighed. “The Matrix, Clark.”

“Oh.” He nodded, though he was still confused. He was sure Chloe had some remark about the simplicity of farmboys primed and ready to fire, so he decided to speak before she had the chance to thoroughly baffle him. “So do you want to get back to studying or do you need a few more minutes?”

“Loose lips are the bane of ocean-liners everywhere,” she replied. So much for not letting her confuse him. “If we talk too long we’ll lose direction and this’ll take forever. Let’s keep studying.”

So they went back to work. He showed her the symbol for Kal-El, his birth name. The symbol was rigid; straight lines everywhere, with very few curves. He also showed her how to sign her own name in Kryptonian. It looked more elegant, but suggested strength, just like her. She wrote it several times on a sheet of paper before something occurred to her.

“You know, you never told me what the language was called.” She looked away for a moment, stroking her chin. “Kryptonese?”

He laughed out loud. “Do you have any idea how racist you sound right now?”

“Technically it’s speciest, and no, I didn’t. Have I offended your delicate alien sensibilities?”

Clark chuckled at the thought of any part of him being described as ‘delicate.’ “Yes,” he said with feigned umbrage. “Yes you have. Especially since I prefer ‘Intergalactic Traveler’ instead of ‘alien.’”

She placed a hand to her chest. “Well I’m sorry,” she said before they both burst out laughing again. It had been a while since they’d laughed together. “Seriously, what’s it called?”

“Well, Raya told me that there were five ‘father voices’ before the language was unified.” He could say Raya’s name without pausing or going completely catatonic for a few minutes. It was progress.

“What were they?”

“Well, the main one was called Kandorian, but there was also Vath, Twenx, Urrikan, and Lurvanish.”

Chloe blinked. “That last one sounds kinda Russian.”

“Because all aliens are Communists,” Clark joked, though she could tell that he was a little hurt by the implication.

“You have to admit you would have turned out totally different if you’d been raised there instead of here. The USSR was still around when the meteors hit.”

“Clark Kent: Red Son,” he tried out before shaking his head. “I can’t see it.”

“That’s because ‘Clark Kent’ doesn’t really sound Russian. Maybe if you tried something else.”

“We’re getting sidetracked here.”

“You always did have a fear of tangents.”

“Whatever. Do you wanna be here all night?”

“Like I'll learn to read Kryptonian—that’s what we’re calling it, by the way—in one night anyway. And you know I’ve spent enough nights at this farm to qualify as a part-time resident. Good thing you and your mom don’t believe in charging rent.”

“We’ve thought about it. Don’t you wanna get back to Jimmy, though?”

She sighed and looked down. “About Jimmy.”

His eyes widened. She hadn’t broken up with Jimmy, had she? If so, that sucked for the photographer, but it would be a godsend for him. And he really needed some good news right now. He motioned for her to continue.

“I didn’t just skip a date with him to come here and study. I kinda walked out on dinner.”

Fighting the urge to speed over to wherever Jimmy was wallowing in sorrow and do a victory dance before making out with Chloe right in front of him, Clark asked: “What happened?”

She stood and walked over to the couch, taking a seat there. Clark followed. “I mentioned that I was coming over to your place after our date. I guess he wanted to spend some time alone with me tonight, so when I told him I already had plans, he sorta lost it.”

“In the middle of the restaurant?”

“Well it’s not like I had to throw champagne in his face. But I could tell he was upset. We weren’t even at a fancy restaurant, and we were going Dutch on the tab. I figured it was no big deal if we both went to spend the rest of the night with other people.”

“Except Jimmy doesn’t really have other people.”

“Right. So when I mentioned your name, he got kinda jealous.”

“Jimmy? Jealous?”

“You have to admit, he’s made connections between us where there were none before.”

Clark frowned. Jimmy hadn’t known how right he was. “So you two broke up?”

“Not officially, but I do remember him saying something about spending all my romantic evenings with you from now on.” She sighed. “I think you’d better come with me to talk to him tomorrow. Smooth things out.”

“I’m not so sure I want to do that.”

“Oh come on, Clark!” She slapped his shoulder, and he moved so she wouldn’t hurt herself. “How many times have I had your back? Besides, if you didn’t show up, you’d be giving him the impression that he was right about us.”

He suddenly had a deep desire to kiss her. She blinked, and he could hear her heart flutter.

“Because he wasn’t, right?”

No, he was. Jimmy had never been more right about anything.

“Clark?”

He didn’t answer. He just leaned in.

And kissed her.

At first she tried to pull away, but one of the advantages of super strength is the ability to hold on to things. Besides, she’d wanted this for longer than he had. And hadn’t she just broken up with Jimmy? Why would she want to go back to her placebo boyfriend when the real object of her desires was right here, kissing her?

She gave in, opening her lips and extending her tongue in invitation. He answered without hesitation, then leaned back and let his hands roam around her shirt. If he wanted—which he so did—he could remove the flimsy garment like it was saran wrap covering an incredibly tasty meal. But he didn’t do things like that without permission. And he knew that no matter how badly Chloe had wanted him for the last six years, she wasn’t the kind of girl to screw first, ask questions later. Besides, he could cripple or even kill her if he wasn’t careful. Or burn her. That tended to be a mood killer.

Chloe’s sudden moan of protest reminded him that humans needed to breathe more often than he did. He broke the kiss, but didn’t take his arms off her.

“Clark, let go.”

He shook his head. “I like you like this.”

“Let me go right now, or I swear the second you release me later I'll get the meteor rock out of your tool box and pound you with it.”

Chloe always had a bluntness about her that Lana lacked. He liked that. He removed his arms from around her, but he still held her hand so she wouldn’t leave. Not that she looked like she wanted to. She slid off of him, back onto the couch.

“Clark, what just happened?”

He took a deep breath. “Chloe, do you know who I wanted to see the second I got out of the Phantom Zone?”

“Let me guess: Lana?”

He smacked his forehead with enough force that, had he not also been invulnerable, he would have shattered his skull. “No, not Lana. It was the last person to kiss me.”

She blinked. “You wanted to see me?”

“Yes! You’re a great kisser, not to mention you’ve always loved me.”

“But the feeling hasn’t always been mutual.”

He sighed. “And I’m sorry about that,” he said. “But Lana’s gone and you’re the only one who wouldn’t be taking her place.”

“And why is that?”

“Because you’ve always had a spot in my heart.”

Chloe looked ready to cry in ecstasy. Before she opened the floodgates, though, she had to ask: “But why didn’t you tell me then?”

“Jimmy,” he answered, and her smile vanished as quickly as it had appeared.

“Oh.”

“Pete told me you dated him during your first summer in Metropolis, after the twisters.”

She sniffed. The tears streaming down her face were no longer happy ones. “Did he also tell you we slept together?”

No. “Why should that matter, Chloe? You’ve always had your heart set after me. And after spending time with Jimmy I think the only reason you like him is because he reminded you of me.”

“How so?”

“Well, I'll admit he’s a lot more upbeat than I am, but he’s a lot like I was freshman year, before all the bad stuff started happening and I started having feelings for Lana again. Sorry, by the way.”

“It’s okay.”

“I just don’t think you should have to settle for someone who’s not right for you.”

“And you are? At least Jimmy’s always there for me. You don’t exactly have the best track record with keeping appointments. Which is beyond ridiculous for someone with a photographic memory.”

“I can’t always control what comes up. Besides, I always show up when I’m needed most, right?”

She ran a sleeve across her face and nodded. “Yeah.”

“And now that I’m promising to make you a priority, don’t you want to see where this goes?”

“That depends. Will I always come first?”

He shook his head. “I can’t promise that. Things happen that I can’t ignore, things like escaped phantoms or rogue meteor freaks, and I can’t always be there for you. But I can promise that when the choice is mine, I'll always choose you.” He looked down. “But if that’s not enough I can understand.”

“You wouldn’t be Clark Kent if you didn’t choose saving the world over having a romantic dinner,” she said, and his head dipped further. “That’s exactly what I love about you. The way you always take responsibility, even for things that aren’t really your fault.”

He looked up at her. “Do you really mean that?”

“That I love you? You know I always say what I mean. If it wasn’t the truth, I wouldn’t say it. Not when you’re baring your soul to me.”

Clark smiled. That was exactly what he needed to hear. “So you really wanna give this a shot?”

“Well, I'll have to talk to Jimmy first—alone, because he might actually end up breaking his hand when he punches you—but yeah. It’s what I’ve always wanted from you, so now that you’re offering, who am I to refuse?”

He kissed her again, and this time she didn’t resist.

“Just promise me one thing, Clark,” she said after they separated. “Promise me you won’t just leave me for Lana like you did at the Spring Formal.”

“If I do have to make a quick exit,” he said as he stroked her face. “I'll always make sure to come right back to you.”

This time she initiated the kiss.

As they rolled around on the couch, the papers lying forgotten on the floor, Clark’s thoughts kept returning to the stars. He’d stared at them so many times from this loft. Now it was as if they were looking down at him.

Time to give them the best show of their billion-year-old lives.