Author's note: This section is set in the beginning of Season Seven of "Smallville", right after the first episode, "Bizarro". In this fic, Lana Lang really is killed in the car explosion in the episode "Phantom" at the end of Season Six of "Smallville." It's also an alternate take on Season Seven in terms of Grant Gabriel, Daily Planet editor, and his relationship with Lois Lane. The reference to Linda Lake's column and the love triangle is from the episode "Hydro".
Several Months Later
Perry sat on his bed, reading his early morning meditation. He'd found that taking a few minutes at the beginning of the day helped keep him sober later on. The small blue book in his hand, "Twelve Steps and Twelve Traditions" lay open to "Step Six."
When men and women pour so much alcohol into themselves that they destroy their lives, they commit a most unnatural act. Defying their instinctive desire for self-preservation, they seem bent upon self-destruction.
Perry snorted. He'd certainly been that way.
As they are humbled by the terrific beating administered by alcohol, the grace of God can enter them and expel their obsession. Here their powerful instinct to live can cooperate fully with their Creator's desire to give them new life. For nature and God alike abhor suicide.
Perry sat soberly, staring at nothing, as he considered how close he came.
If we ask, God will certainly forgive our derelictions. But in no case does He render us white as snow and keep us that way without our cooperation. This is something we are supposed to be willing to work toward ourselves. He asks only that we try as best we know how to make progress in the building of character.
He gave a short chuckle at the thought of 'building character.' He'd heard numerous people say that he was a character.
So Step Six – 'Were entirely ready to have God remove all these defects of character' – is A.A.'s way of stating the best possible attitude one can take in order to make a beginning on this lifetime job. This does not mean that we expect all our character defects to be lifted out of us as the drive to drink was. A few of them may be, but with most of them we shall have to be content with patient improvement. The key words 'entirely ready' underline the fact that we want to aim at the very best we know or can learn.
Perry sat quietly, considering the lesson. Then he got up, finished dressing, and headed to work.
He got to the Planet, scanned the room. Hmm…that was unusual. Chloe wasn't at her desk. Oh well. She'd been working a lot lately; maybe she'd taken a morning off. He checked the next desk over; Chloe's cousin Lois Lane hadn't shown up either.
Perry had mixed feelings about Lois. She really didn't belong at the Planet. She couldn't spell worth a darn, her grammar was shaky, and she had a penchant for chasing 'out-there' stories to the detriment of following through on hard news. Although, if Perry were to be honest, he himself had had his own "X-Styles" moments, and he knew that strange things were out there.
But what really frosted him about the Lois Lane situation wasn't Lois. It was the floor editor, Grant Gabriel, who Perry suspected – no, knew! – was putting the moves on Lois. Not only was Gabriel assigning Lois stories beyond her skill level (frankly, beyond what she'd earned), the editor also was trying to drive a wedge between Chloe Sullivan and Lois Lane, trying to set them up as competitors, and denigrating Chloe at every chance he got.
That made Perry mad. Firstly, Chloe Sullivan could out-report and out-investigate Lois any day of the week. He took this as a personal insult to his protégé. Secondly, and more importantly, Perry had nothing but scorn and disgust for a man who would use the authority of his position to influence a subordinate to sleep with him. Not only did it hurt the Planet to have a less-capable writer submitting stories, it was a grave breach of professional and personal ethics.
The good thing about Lois was that she was using Grant Gabriel back in turn. Perry felt confident that Lois hadn't slept with the editor yet; she was probably just toying with him. She would come to Chloe for advice on the story, and Chloe usually would bring in Perry. As a result, Lois had become a second mentee, and Perry could see the improvement in her writing already. He didn't worry that Lois would succumb to Gabriel's smarmy tactics; Perry already realized that Lois was the type of person who could recognize a con man a mile away. And if Gabriel tried to push her….Perry figured Lois would kick him where it counted.
So Lois Lane hadn't asked for the awkward situation, but once in it she was making the most of it. Unfortunately, right now Chloe Sullivan was getting pounded. Perry urged her to persist, to work through the tough times. Lois too; she told Chloe all about Grant Gabriel's tricks. The solid relationship between the cousins held firm despite the editor's attempts to disrupt it.
And Perry used his own presence to influence the editor. Gabriel had never tried any crap with Perry; he knew Perry wouldn't stand for it. He knew Perry could fold him up, spread him on a cracker, and eat him for breakfast. So the two men had an armed truce. Grant Gabriel didn't bother Perry too much, and Perry remained professional at all times, turning in well-written stories on deadline.
Gabriel seemed oblivious to Perry's mentoring and teaching of the interns, young photographers and photojournalists, and cub reporters – something that the editor should really be doing on his own. (Another dereliction of responsibility, Perry thought.) Perry had a solid core of young "Planetoids" coming into shape now; Perry hoped that most of them would be able to move onto the upper floors; if not, after his training, they'd be able to find a job at any newspaper. Selfishly, Perry wanted to keep them for the Planet.
Grant Gabriel would get his comeuppance in time; Perry only hoped he was there to deliver it. Oh well, what would happen, would happen. Perry would just do what he could to influence it.
Perry dismissed the thought as he began checking his phone messages, looked up at the greeting from a colleague.
"Did you hear the news, Perry?" George Walker asked him. "You've been to Smallville, right?"
"What?" Perry asked.
"Where have you been?" Walker said. "Didn't you hear about Lex Luthor killing his wife?"
"What?" Perry asked. Without waiting for the other's reply, he raced upstairs to the newsroom. Special bulletins on the televisions confirmed George's news.
Lex Luthor arrested for murder of wife….Mrs. Luthor blown up in apparent car bombing…Reeves Dam at Smallville bursts….Lionel Luthor missing, presumed dead in dam failure.…Engineers have no data as to why dam failed at this time….extent of property damage and lives lost is not yet known…
"I've got to get to Smallville," Perry muttered. Fear coursed through him at the thought of Chloe Sullivan being caught in any of that. It surprised him, really. He hadn't thought he'd become this fond of Chloe. But in the few months they'd worked together, he'd come to realize how rare she was, how much she outshone the has-beens and never-will-be's that mostly populated the basement. There were a few interns who measured up to her. None exceeded her.
Without Perry realizing it, (until now, he thought) Chloe Sullivan had become his protégé, he her mentor. He was proud of her, he cheered her on, he stood in awe of her computer hacking skills. He liked how she came to him to ask advice on how to write the story, and later on, what to leave out of a story. He'd taken to introducing her to his contacts, and she hadn't let him down yet. If she'd been hurt, or even killed….Perry couldn't think of that.
He headed to Smallville, hearing bulletins on the radio as he drove through the Kansas countryside. Obviously, no one knew any more than what he'd first heard.
Perry spent the day interviewing local citizens, checking with the police, going out to view the devastation caused by the dam failure. The last surprised him – he expected floods to have washed away half the town. But the damage was confined to the first mile of river just below the dam.
The scattered boulders, shattered bridge girders, and surprisingly, one police car, testified mutely to the fury of the raging waters. But as Perry headed downstream, the damage ceased. On the upstream end of a river curve – devastation. On the downstream end – normal banks, no sign of flooding, no damage.
"How can this be?" Perry asked the air rhetorically. "It's a violation of all the laws of physics. It's like the water just evaporated into thin air or something!" Definitely an "X-Styles" moment. Or a Smallvillian moment, he thought.
Perry looked around and sighed. Nothing else to see here, nobody to talk to. Time to move on. He'd put in a good day's work and sent in several articles that would make the evening edition. He still hadn't found Chloe and no one seemed to know if she was involved. He'd contacted the Planet and she'd never shown up today.
Perry figured he'd go see if Clark Kent was home. They often saw each other, what with Clark's numerous visits to the Planet to see Chloe. And somehow, Perry had become a mentor for Clark, who was now taking a journalism class at Met U. Clark often stopped by, just in time to go to a Friendly Friday Group meeting with Perry. They'd stop for coffee afterwards, and Perry would read Clark's class articles and dissect them ruthlessly. Clark had (almost shyly) told him that Clark got more out of Perry's critiques than he did from the entire journalism class.
Perry thought about Clark as he drove the two-lane roads to the Kent Farm. He'd put it out of his mind all day, but now it exploded to the forefront of his attention. The dead wife of Lex Luthor was Clark's girlfriend. The first time Perry had been in Smallville, he'd met Lana Lang (as she was then) and found that out. Then there'd been the well-publicized "love triangle" reported in Linda Lake's column.
Perry didn't know why the two had broken up and why Lana Lang had married the bald billionaire. He figured the marriage had been really hard on Clark, given that was the time he'd found Clark going to Metropolis for a drug deal. The two of them never talked about that. Perry didn't need to investigate to see that Clark Kent still carried a torch for Lana Lang.
He pulled in the dusty lane for the Kent Farm. Strange; he hadn't been here since the abortive "X-Styles" investigation. He smiled a bit; that time, he'd been thrown off the farm. Perry parked the car, and knocked at the house front door.
No answer. Well, he considered himself Clark's friend; he was going to check things out. Besides, he'd often heard Chloe bemoaning how much Clark moped in the barn loft.
Perry trudged to the barn, entered through the unlocked door, and climbed the stairs. Clark sat at the window, watching the setting sun. He turned to Perry; Perry gasped at the momentary expression of loss and pain that crossed Clark's face. Then Clark smoothed his features into stony quiet.
"Clark," Perry said quietly.
"Perry," the young man replied. He paused a moment, then said bitterly, "If you're here to interview "the boyfriend in the Lex Luthor love triangle" for the Daily Planet, you should know that I've already kicked five paparazzi off the farm."
Perry didn't respond to this attack. Instead, he advanced to Clark and put his hand gently on Clark's shoulder.
"I'm sorry, Clark," he said quietly.
Clark nodded. He looked away. Perry saw his tears reflecting in the setting sunlight. "If I'd been there for her…" his words ended in choking sobs. He seemed undone by Perry's gesture of sympathy, his defenses breached. Perry sat next to him on the battered couch, keeping his arm over Clark's shoulders as the younger man wept.
"Come on, let's get some coffee," Perry said gently. Numbly, Clark stood up and followed him back to the house. Perry stepped through the unlocked back door into the kitchen. The sunshiny interior mocked Clark's sad mood. It should be clouds and rain, Perry thought.
He sat Clark down at the sturdy kitchen table, and fumbled around the kitchen for a few minutes until he found coffee and filters. The reporter poured extra into the coffeemaker to make a strong brew. The two men waited in silence as the steady drip filled the coffeepot.
"I'm sorry, Clark," Perry said again, putting a full cup in front of the younger man. He seated himself, holding his own steaming mug.
Clark stared at the kitchen table. He seemed disinclined to talk. Perry sat quietly, allowing him his silence.
The door slammed. Both men looked up in surprise.
"Chloe!" Perry exclaimed. "You're OK!"
"Perry?" she replied. "What are you doing here?"
"I came by to check on Clark," Perry said. He took a closer look at Chloe. "Are you OK?" Her bedraggled appearance, so unlike her usual well-groomed look, made him blurt out, "You look like death warmed over."
She winced.
"I'm sorry, Chloe," Perry apologized. God, he'd put his foot in his mouth there. "That was uncalled for."
"No offense, Perry," Chloe said wearily, advancing to the coffeepot. "I couldn't sleep." She poured herself a large mug and sat next to Clark at the kitchen table. He reached out and took her hand; she squeezed his hand back.
The silence lingered. Perry had never seen Chloe and Clark so dispirited.
"What are you going to do next?" Perry asked the two. Chloe startled.
"Well, I hadn't really thought about it…" Clark mumbled.
Perry straightened his shoulders. "You're going to work, Clark." He caught the younger man's gaze, then stared straight at Chloe. "And you, too, Chloe."
The two looked back in surprise, like deer caught in the headlights.
"I've been in situations like this before. And you can either sit around obsessing about it, reliving it, and thinking about it. Or you can move on." Perry's voice took on a gentler tone. "I know this is a hard time. But when there's nothing else to do, you work."
Chloe lifted her eyebrows.
"Get the story. Chloe, you've told me you've been working on a Luthorcorp angle – what can you write about this? And Clark, you probably won't want to work on the, um, Lana Lang murder story, but the Planet needs coverage on the dam break! What's the town going to do? Why isn't there more damage?" Perry got up and started pacing. "What about the hydroelectric loss? What's that going to do for local power bills? What's the power company going to do about repair?"
Clark and Chloe looked at each other. Perry could tell it was a "just humor him" kind of look. But if it got them off their asses, he didn't care.
"I know this sounds corny, you two," Perry said. "But you take it one day at a time. And you work." He thought of his old grandmother and her oft-repeated maxim. "Work will be your salvation."
He grinned at the look they shared. "Just take it one day at a time."
