Sam was the one who drove Aunt Martha to the hospital, but he didn't stay long. He could tell that Uncle Jon needed to be alone, and Sam wasn't under any illusion that spending one week with the Kents once a year for the past few years made him a part of their family. This was a family matter.

He wasn't sure where to go. The wedding would be long over by now. It didn't feel appropriate to go back to the farm, but going to the mansion felt worse. Lex wasn't there, since he'd taken off on his honeymoon, but Sam was pretty sure Dean still would be.

Of course, the real reason Sam didn't feel comfortable going back to the farm had less to do with feeling it was inappropriate for him to be around while they were suffering through a family disaster, and more to do with the role he'd played in it. In hindsight, it would have been so easy to avoid the whole accident. Sam didn't have to involve the Kents; he could have driven back to the farm alone to try again to dissuade Clark from his rash course of action. Even if he'd told them, he could have encouraged Martha to stay behind. He knew she was at least six months pregnant.

But reflex had won out. They hadn't had much time, and Sam didn't know if he could convince Clark on his own. He knew Uncle Jon could.

Sam stood awkwardly outside of the hospital for a few minutes, then he decided to go back to the farm and wait for Clark in the loft. Clark would be suffering a lot worse than he was, after what had happened to his parents. Sam wasn't sure whether Clark would stay at the hospital until his parents got home, though. He had a tendency to run off and think in the loft. As tempted as Sam was to load Clark down with I told you so's, it wasn't what Clark would need, and it wouldn't help him. He needed someone to tell him that what happened to his mother wasn't his fault, that he was trying to do the best he could to take care of his family, that he couldn't have known.

Sam paced in the loft. It was hard for him to convince even himself that the accident had been no one's fault. Guilt weighed on him, though not so much because of the fact that he had alerted the Kents and not encouraged Aunt Martha to stay behind. He wished he had been faster. He wished he had been more vigilant. That he had noticed what Clark was doing earlier. How have you been so stupid? He should've known.

Less than an hour after Sam arrived in the loft, he heard the sound of a motorcycle starting up, and he looked out of the window to see Clark speeding away. Sam doubted Uncle Jon had given him permission to ride it, but maybe Clark just needed to clear his head. He would be back soon. Sam didn't have anywhere else to go; he decided to continue waiting it out.

The shadows in the loft grew, longer and longer, until finally the sun dipped below the horizon, and Clark still hadn't returned. Sam was starting to get hungry. He didn't exactly have much money—the Kents wouldn't mind if he borrowed something from their fridge. He felt terrible, given the circumstances, but he'd check on them in the hospital right after and make sure they were alright.

He drove to the hospital as soon as he'd finished eating—Clark was still nowhere to be seen. It was a different receptionist than the last one he'd seen, so he had to check in and explain who he was to be allowed in; she ended up checking in with the Kents, who gave their permission.

Uncle Jon sat beside Aunt Martha's bedside; she was still unconscious. His eyes were swollen with tears, but he held in his arms a little bundle with a tiny face poking out.

Sam gasped. "Is that . . ."

Uncle Jon nodded and cleared his throat. "Eleanor Kent. She's premature, but perfectly healthy, according to the doctors."

"She's beautiful, Uncle Jon."

"She is." A tear traced its way down his cheek. "They had to perform a c-section because of the way the . . . the other baby . . . my son . . ." He hung his head.

A cold hand grasped Sam's heart. He had no idea what to say. Even I'm sorry seemed so small and trite.

Uncle Jon took a deep breath. "Do you know where Clark is?"

"He took your motorcycle a few hours ago. He . . . hasn't been back."

Uncle Jon looked up at Sam. His face turned white.

Dean had planned to head back to his father as soon as the wedding was over. If he wasn't gone for long, he could tell his dad the case had been simple or nonexistent, and his dad wouldn't press him with questions.

But the guest room Lex had given him was amazing. The most comfortable bed he'd ever slept in, best water pressure in the world, and servants brought him every meal. It couldn't hurt to spent just one or two more nights here. It wasn't as if it would bother Lex.

But then the next day, Helen returned to the mansion, hysterical. Apparently the plane had gone down over the ocean. Her story was that there had only been one parachute, and Lex had given it to her to save her life.

Dean didn't believe that for a second. Not because he thought Helen had any sort of malicious intentions, but because he knew exactly what life-and-death situation could do to a person. He also knew what kind of safety measures Lex took, and there was no way that jet had only had one parachute. Instinct must've kicked in. Helen had saved herself and left her husband behind. It was what most people do.

Dean didn't even hear the story directly from her. He picked it up in pieces over the course of the hours that followed Helen's return. The mansion security kicked Dean out as soon as Helen was back; Dean ended up getting a motel room nearby and calling his father to let him know the case was taking a turn, and he was going to stay longer.

No disappearance in Smallville was ever just a coincidence. And no threat to a Luthor was ever an accident. Whoever had come after Lex might come after someone else. And if Dean knew Lex's survival instincts, there might even be a chance that he could be alive. He doubted the search and rescue teams would find him, but Dean wasn't going to leave town until he knew exactly what had happened.

The trouble was, as much as he knew about monsters, he didn't know as much about the kinds of cases that went down in Smallville. Most of them involved meteor rock. He needed an expert on them to help him.

He knew of one person he could call. He really, really didn't want to call her—not just because it was wrong to bring someone so young into things, but also because she'd be so damn smug about it. But in the end, finding Lex was more important than Dean's preferences, and he could hold off giving Chloe any information that would allow her to put herself into any real danger.

Dean groaned and bit the bullet. He took out his phone and called Chloe Sullivan.

She met him at the Torch office at her school; she was able to get him a visitor pass by telling the office she was interviewing him for an article for her school newspaper. She greeted him with a bright smile, and he tried to ignore the self-satisfaction that radiated from her.

"So, what are we thinking?" she asked when they were safe behind the closed door and out of range of prying ears.

"Not sure yet. Could be a spy in the mansion."

She winced. "Lex's background checks are pretty thorough, and you wouldn't have reached out to me if you didn't suspect something that . . . the police wouldn't catch."

Dean sighed and leaned a little closer. "Look, normally I wouldn't suspect anything. The Luthors have their share of enemies. But this is Smallville."

Chloe grinned wryly. "Someone gets it. Any signs of supernatural activities?"

"I checked the mansion, the chapel, and the strip where the jet took off. No sulfur, no EMF."

"Did you try using a geiger counter?"

Dean shook his head. "Ah, no. Thought the meteor rock didn't put out any measurable radioactivity."

"It doesn't, but when a monster that would usually put out EMF gets infected by meteor rock, it puts out a low level of radiation instead. Not enough to be harmful, but it does leave traces of radioactive material behind."

Dean blinked. He thought Chloe might know a little more than he did about lore specific to meteor rock-infected mutants. Now he had to wonder how much she knew about monsters in general.

"Don't look so surprised. Lex and I have been working on this for awhile."

"You've been working with Lex?"

"He's got this whole room in his house set aside for his research. Artifacts of meteor mutant cases we've worked. We haven't had a lot of supernatural activity in Smallville, but we've had a lot of meteor mutants. I mean, monsters would be easier. At least there's lore on them. Unfortunately, mutants don't respond the same way monsters do, and there's hardly any information on them. And infected monsters are even worse." Chloe pulled out a binder. "But we haven't exactly been idle this past year. This binder is everything we have so far. It's a catalogue of my Wall of Weird and Lex's Room of Obsession, along with all the conclusions we've drawn."

Dean raised his eyebrows. It must have been a lot like his dad's journal. "Chloe, you wouldn't mind if I borrowed this, would you? I swear I'll bring it back." As soon as Lex returns to make sure you don't get yourself into trouble with it.

Chloe hesitated. "Okay," she said, handing it over. "But please be careful with it. It's a year's worth of work."

"Of course." He stood to go. "I'll let you know when I know more. And you call me if you hear anything."

"I will," she said, and he was just reaching for the door handle when she said, "Wait, Dean?"

He turned back toward her.

"Do you think this whole thing with Lex is connected to Clark's disappearance? Or the, um, explosion at the Kent farm?"

Dean made a mental note to look into those things. He'd heard about Clark running off, but had just assumed it was part of his grieving over his baby sibling who had died. Different people responded to grief in really different ways. "You'll be the first to know," he lied easily.

She nodded, biting her lip.