A Date for the Fourth of July
(A Sequel to "Dates of Wars" and, kind of, "What Child is This" & "Like a Shepherd") By LastScorpion

Disclaimer: "Buffy the Vampire Slayer" is owned by UPN and/or Mutant Enemy and/or Fox and/or Joss Whedon. "Smallville" is owned by DC Comics and/or the WB and/or Millar & Gough and/or Tollin & Robbins. "Forever Knight" was invented by James Parriott, and the rights to it and all its characters probably belong to Sony or Columbia/TriStar. "The X-Files" and all its characters were invented by Chris Carter and aired on Fox -- they probably own the rights. "Superman" was invented by Shuster & Siegel, and he is apparently owned by Time/Warner these days. I don't own any of the characters. I'm just fooling around. Please don't sue. Goes AU right around the middle of Buffy season 7 and Smallville season 2.

Author's Note Regarding the AU'ness of it All: "Forever Knight" and "The X-Files" are pretty much going to be regarded as having gone exactly as they did, as far as I can recall. LOL! No guarantees of accuracy, though I'll probably be better on the FK than the XF. This version of Buffy and her friends used a clever plan to wedge the First Evil into the Hellmouth, thus leaving it partially blocked off like it was when she first came to Sunnydale and the Master was wedged into it. This version of Lex was never put into Belle Reve; I think I'm going to take Smallville AU around the Helex wedding episode - there's a version on the DVD where they just ran off together instead of actually tying the knot; I'll go with that. Also, Martha's baby didn't die; Clark saved her as per "What Child is This," and he didn't blow up the ship.

A million thanks to TeenyGozer and TheDieHard for beta-reading this!

"That's a good look for you."

Martha's friendly voice sounded entirely too amused. Lex's eyes snapped open. He found himself settled in the corner of the Kents' sturdy old living room davenport, covered with sleeping blondes. Well, actually, there was one little strawberry blonde curled up asleep in his lap, and a thin, worn bottle-blonde leaning asleep on his shoulder. His right hand rested on Cara's baby-soft curls, and his left was tucked around Buffy's hard sharp little shoulder. It was hot -- he was surprised any of them had remained asleep so long like that.

Lex licked dry lips. He was thirsty. "What time is it?" he asked.

"Almost noon. I've finished my morning's work, and I was coming to see if you all wanted lunch."

Her mother's voice appeared to wake Cara up. She zoomed over faster than Lex could see and grabbed Martha's leg with exaggerated gentleness. "Mama!" she squealed.

"Cara," Martha rebuked her mildly. "You know better than to do that in front of people." She gave Lex an uneasy look. It hurt. He bit down on his questions, but Martha answered them anyway. "I'm sorry, Lex. It's habit. She needs to get used to behaving in public. Fortunately you already know about Clark." She turned to her daughter. "Go wash your hands, sweetie."

Then she came over to the couch and touched Lex on the shoulder. "I do trust you. It's just habit," she repeated. "Cara's not from Krypton. When I was pregnant with her, Clark used the meteor rock and electricity to transfer some of his powers to us, to save our lives. On me, it wore off, but for Cara, it stuck."

"The time he was so sick... that guy with a knife," Lex realized.

"Yes. When he admitted you hit him with your car."

"I thought he was just sick. He was stabbed. I saw the blood."

"Yes. He was. He got better." Martha smiled at him warmly. "Wash up for lunch, please, Lex. You should wake Buffy, too. She looks like she could use a good meal, and I think she said she had some phone calls to make." Martha went back into the kitchen.

Buffy was dreaming. It was hot where she was. There was sand and hard-baked clay all around, and nothing moved for miles in every direction. The sky was that blue that's so pale it's almost white. There were no clouds. There was no wind.

She wanted to stay there, but she knew there was something she needed to do.

Suddenly a drop of blood appeared on her coarse white pajamas. Another followed, and another. Blood was raining down on the Slayer, from a clear hot sky.

Buffy gasped and woke up. Lex was gently shaking her shoulder.

"Buffy?" he asked. He looked concerned. How long had she been asleep?

It was hot. She didn't recognize the room. She was wearing a sleeveless blue cotton nightdress, not blood-stained institutional whites. "Where am I?"

Lex smiled crookedly at her. "That's a little cliched, isn't it? We're in Smallville, Kansas. The Kents' house."

"I remember now." Buffy wanted to lean on Lex's shoulder again and go back to sleep. Instead she drew away from him, and he let her go. She rubbed her face and pulled her hair back, out of her eyes. "What time is it? I need to call Xander."

Lex wordlessly offered her his cell phone, and she thanked him.

"Harris."

"Xander? It's me, Buffy."

"Buffy! Thank God! Did Willow get in touch with you?"

"Dawn talked to her. Or read e-mail from her, or something. Um. Well, Dawn told me that I'm not wanted by the Nut Patrol anymore. Will fixed it."

"Are you hurt? How did you escape?"

"I'm okay. I, just, you know, escaped. Broke a window, attracted wandering vampires to kill my fellow inmates, got Lex's dad's eyeballs pulled out. Sorry. I didn't mean to bring up any... Um, I meant to call and ask about what's going on at the Hellmouth. I'm in Kansas. At Clark's house."

"Hellmouth seems to be quiet. It's almost July; I think we're having our midsummer lull. I haven't heard anything about vampires since before you disappeared. I called Chris Epps this morning and he said there weren't any mysterious deaths, even."

"Wow. Well, that's, uh, good. That's good."

"Are you sure you're okay? You sound kinda...."

Buffy blinked hard as her friend's voice trailed off.

"Tired, Buff. You sound tired."

"I guess I am," she admitted.

"So, Kansas, huh?" Xander asked cheerfully, changing the subject. "Have you seen any twisters? Wicked Witch of the West?"

"Um. Kind of. Drusilla was here."

"Drusilla!" Xander sounded alarmed again. "Are you okay?"

"You keep asking that," Buffy complained. "I'm fine. She killed most of the people Lionel Luthor had locked up with me, and she turned the rest into vampires, and one of the vampires tore Lionel's eyes out, and Lex killed her."

"Wow. You've got more vamp action there in the middle of nowhere than we've got in Hell Central right now."

"Yeah. Did I... do you happen to know if I'm fired from my job yet?"

Xander's voice went all apologetic. "Yeah, you are. Sorry. I got worried when you weren't around, and I went to the shoe department to see if you were there, or if they'd heard from you. I could have called you in sick or something if I'd known you'd been kidnapped, instead of...."

"Yeah. When a Slayer disappears, she's usually just dead. I'm sorry I worried you. And forget about the job. It's totally not your fault."

"Thanks. So, when are you coming back?"

"I'll have to hitch a ride with somebody somehow. I don't have any money or anything to get a plane ticket. Or a bus ticket. I'll figure something out."

"Don't be in a hurry."

"Huh?"

"Look, Buffy, you haven't had a vacation since the summer after sophomore year."

Buffy remembered what had happened in Los Angeles that summer, the old friends from Hemery High that she'd encountered vamped and been forced to kill. It hadn't been as much of a vacation as she'd let on to the Scoobies. She kept silent again. Xander was still talking.

"The Hellmouth is quiet. Willow's Big Prophecy Database doesn't show anything happening any time soon. If something turns up, I can call Angel Investigations in L.A. I promise I won't try to handle anything all by myself. Why don't you see if Clark's folks would let you stay there for a few days, and have a little rest?"

"I couldn't impose."

"You've saved the world a dozen times. They know that. I'm sure they'll be glad to have you. Or that guy Lex Luthor -- he's richer than God; he must have a spare room."

Buffy didn't know what to say; she blanked for a minute. Finally she settled on "I'll call you later." She closed the phone and went looking for Lex to give it back to him.

Fox Mulder opened his eyes, then closed them again. He wished he were still asleep, or already dead. An end to striving -- all he'd have to pay for his Nirvana was his life, and the end of the human race. He was probably going to have to pay that anyway, whether he stayed in bed or not.

Mulder sighed and got up. Yesterday's clothes would do. Besides, there wasn't anything else. The location of this last-ditch emergency bunker had only ever been known to four men. Three of them were dead now. No one cared about keeping the place in readiness.

He'd tried everything. He, and Scully, and Skinner, had tried so hard. They weren't the only ones. Others had paid in blood and horror even more than they had.

All the prices had been paid in vain.

Time had run out, and it had happened six years earlier than he'd thought it would. All the good agents had been crushed, the careful well-thought-out plans had been thwarted. Everything had failed.

Scully might have given up, given up on the world and given up on him, which she'd never done before, not really. Now that nothing mattered anymore, she was going to go spend the last few days ever with her son, with their son. He could come along if he liked, she said.

Mulder told her there was one thing more he had to try. Scully disagreed, but she wished him luck before she went.

He'd sure need it.

Dawn woke up happy, took a nice cool bath (darn Midwestern weather!), got dressed in yesterday's clothes (yuck!) and bounced down the stairs. The kitchen was full of activity. There was homemade bread and homemade jam, Kent Organic milk and fruit, and cold fried chicken.

Clark and his dad came in, stomping their feet on the porch to dislodge the dirt. They were conversing enthusiastically about crops or something. It seemed like Mr. Kent was glad to have Clark back after his little monster-hunting jaunt. Every time Dawn saw them together, their closeness struck her as odd. Maybe it was another Midwestern thing, but she'd never get used to people's fathers being around and, you know, glad to see them and stuff. Lex's dad seemed less weird to her than Clark's did.

Clark noticed her coming into the kitchen and beamed. "Hey, Sleepyhead!" he greeted her. "You just getting up? We've been working for hours."

"Bite me, spaceboy," Dawn sniped good-naturedly back.

Cara was setting napkins around the table, and Lex was helping her with the flatware. It was funny to see that bald head gravely bent down to listen to the little girl's chatter, and the serious way he took Cara's bossing him around about how to set the table.

Buffy drifted in from the living room, holding Lex's tiny telephone. She looked lost in thought, but that was considerably better than just plain lost, and Dawn was glad to see it.

"What's up?" Dawn asked.

"Xander says nothing. He says Willow's got no prophecies and Chris has no suspicious deaths and it's Midsummer at Hell Central and I should take a vacation. In Kansas."

Dawn let out a delighted laugh. "Cool!"

"I guess."

Buffy handed Lex back his phone. Dawn noticed how the billionaire looked at her sister, and the way his hand tried to linger on Buffy's hand when she gave him back his cell. She smiled. Suddenly she felt like Mrs. Bennett.

Buffy went on. "But I have nothing to wear! Okay, that came out whiney. But literally, nothing to wear. And nothing of any kind, actually. And no means of getting home. And --"

Lex cut off the rant with a hand on Buffy's bare shoulder. Dawn liked the expression on Buffy's face when she looked up at him. Clark and his parents were washing up and setting out food; only Dawn and Cara were paying attention to Buffy and Lex.

"Don't worry," Lex said in a low voice. "I'll get you anything you need."

Dawn felt like pumping her fist in the air and shouting, "Yes!" Instead she just watched her sister blink cutely up at the richest non-evil guy she'd ever heard of until Martha Kent told everybody to sit down for lunch.

This was nice, Clark thought as he passed the plates of food around the kitchen table. His dad looked happy, too. Clark had heard the occasional story about big family gatherings from Jonathan's childhood, but the Kent family had dwindled down to almost nothing by the time Clark fell to Earth, and four at the table was about the most he was personally familiar with.

Mom gave Buffy a jug of milk and asked, "What did your friend Xander have to say?"

"All quiet on the Hellmouth front," Buffy smiled. "He said not to hurry back."

Dawn looked like she was bubbling over. "You can come stay in my dorm for another week! It'll be great! We didn't see half the stuff in Metropolis last time that I wanted to show you!"

Clark was confused. "I thought you had a lot of lab work you had to get finished this month?"

Dawn's face fell a little, and Clark was sorry he'd said anything. "That's right, I do. I only have 'til Saturday to finish my milestones for June. I gotta get back to the lab!"

Mom laughed at Dawn's sudden mood shift. "Not until after lunch, I hope."

Dawn calmed down immediately, and smiled as she took another piece of bread-and-jam. "Tomorrow's probably soon enough."

"Maybe you could stay at the penthouse, Buffy," Lex ventured. Clark didn't know how anyone could look elegant eating fried chicken with their fingers, but Lex somehow managed. "There's plenty of room, and my father probably won't be there for a while -- maybe the castle would be better. It's completely empty at the moment, except for Mrs. Digman, and I'm sure she'd be glad of the company."

"Nah, you don't wanna stay someplace all by yourself," Dad put in. "Besides, Lex is a single man; it wouldn't be proper. Why don't you stay here, at least until the Fourth of July? We've got room, and, no offense, but you could use some home-cooking."

"Mrs. Digman cooks," Lex said quietly.

"Be a pity to come all the way to Smallville from California and not stay for the Independence Day Fair," Dad wheedled.

Mom was looking at Dad with a smile Clark didn't understand. Cara suddenly was right next to Buffy, snuggling up to her. "Yeah!" Cara said, "Stay here with me!"

Buffy laughed. Clark wasn't sure, but it might have been the first time he'd heard her laugh. She sounded really happy. "Okay," she said. "Thank you very very much. But I totally need some clothes."

"No prob," Dawn exclaimed. She turned to Lex. "You'll take me into town and buy my sister clothes, won't you, Lex? I know all her sizes and what she looks good in."

"Dawn!" Buffy sounded scandalized.

"His dad did kidnap you. You have saved his life."

"He's saved mine, too." Buffy was kind of gazing at Lex. Clark suddenly thought he'd figured out what Dawn was so happy about.

"Let me buy you clothes," Lex murmured. Lex could be darn persuasive. That was probably part of what made him so good at business.

Buffy smiled. "Okay," she said.

Fordman's was still the place in Smallville to shop for clothes. People who wanted something else would travel to the outlet mall just outside Grandville. Lex was willing to support local small businessman Bill Ross (who had bought the store from Mrs. Fordman several years earlier) but there was no way in hell he'd frequent the outlet mall.

Lex leaned against the wall and watched Dawn riffle swiftly through the racks of clothes. She'd taken quite a while finding a pair of jeans that suited whatever criteria she was using. Two little shirts of some sort had been easier, and now she seemed to be hunting out a sundress. She pounced on one, making a cute little "Ah ha!" sound, and then headed over to another part of the store.

Lex, thinking of his own huge closets full of clothes, had expected Dawn to be looking for considerably longer. "Are you sure that's enough?" he asked.

Dawn turned and looked at him speculatively. "I forgot who was bankrolling this for a minute. Are you saying you think I should get her more?"

Lex looked at Dawn, holding the little armful of clothing, and thought. He really wanted to get home to the castle so he could take a shower and change. On the other hand, a woman staying in Smallville for a week needed more clothes than that. "Maybe we could come back for more later?" he ventured.

Dawn gave him a sly smile. "Don't you think it would be better if she came back with you later?"

Lex smiled back. What was he, slow this morning? Out-schemed by a nineteen-year-old Physics major. "That's a fine idea," he said, carefully not displaying as much enthusiasm as he felt. A man had to have some pride.

Dawn looked very smug. "I'll just go get her a few small essentials, underwear, toothbrush, comb, and then we can head on out." She bounced away.

Cara had been carried upstairs for her nap, protesting all the way that she'd already had a nap, a long one, with Buffy 'n' Lex! Now Mrs. Kent was packing up the morning's baked goods for delivery. Clark and his dad were out in the barn doing the same with the produce. Dawn and Lex were out at the store. Buffy found herself alone.

She couldn't get dressed, because she didn't have any clothes. She'd had a bath the night before. She couldn't comb her hair, because no comb or hairbrush. She felt all slept out, so no nap for Buffy. She couldn't worry about her job, because, hey, no job. She supposed she could worry about Sunnydale, but it was more than a thousand miles away.

For the first time since she'd been dead, Buffy found herself completely at loose ends.

She wandered all around the farmhouse, looking at things. Cara, it turned out, was even cuter when she was asleep. Buffy ended up in the big kitchen. Apparently she was being stealthy, because it took Mrs. Kent a couple of minutes before she looked up at her and said, "Hi, Buffy! Could you give me a hand with these?"

"Oh! Sure! I'm sorry, I should have come in before and offered to help."

"No, no, I was fine. They're all done anyhow. I just wondered if you could help me carry them out to the truck."

The orders were packed up into cardboard boxes and tied shut with brown string. Buffy looped a bunch of them onto each arm and followed Martha out into the yard.

"I see you got somebody else to help carry today!" Clark's cheerful voice boomed as they got to the truck. The truck-bed was packed with bigger, dirtier-looking cardboard boxes full of fruit and vegetables. Martha directed Buffy to load her things into the cab, where they were neatly stacked on the passenger's side of the worn bench seat.

"That's right!" Martha replied. Jonathan Kent was standing at the rear of the truck, wiping his hands on a rag. Martha went to him and took him by the elbow. "Honey, could I have a word with you?"

Clark started loudly enumerating all the different kinds of vegetables they grew on the Kent Organic Farm, and who ordered how much of what kinds, but Buffy's Slayer-hearing still picked up a few masculine protests of the 'But I was gonna work on the tractor for a while' variety from the conversation behind them. She ducked her head and smiled a little. Clark, who could obviously hear his parents' conversation even more clearly than she could, started to laugh. Soon they were both giggling like idiots, and they were barely able to compose themselves when Clark's dad came out of the barn. He walked up to the truck and said, "Son, howsabout I do the deliveries today. There's some people on the route who I haven't seen in a month of Sundays. You can take Buffy around the place, show her the crick and stuff."

"Okay, Dad. Thanks. That'd be great."

Martha was leaning against the outside of the barn, gazing fondly at her husband. Buffy and she smiled at each other.

"And this is the crick," Clark said, pointing out the little watercourse. He'd already shown Buffy the whole barn, including his Fortress of Solitude and all the swallows' nests and the place where the owl sometimes was, and the vegetable plots, and the sweet corn, and the cows, and the milking-shed, and the beehives, and the orchards. She'd showed a surprising ability for climbing trees (Clark politely averting his eyes, because she was wearing a nightgown still) and told him about sneaking out of the house to fight monsters in high school. They skipped the compost heap.

"Crick, huh?" Buffy said. She slid her feet out of the plastic sandals she'd apparently stolen while on the run from Lex's father and stepped into the edge of the water. "Why do you call it that?"

"I guess actually it's a creek. Everybody I know pronounces it crick, though." Clark sat down on a rock (non-meteorite) and untied his boots.

"Ooh! There's fish in here!" Buffy squeaked. "And tiny little lobsters!"

"Minnows and crawdaddies," Clark specified. He rolled up his jeans legs and put his feet in the water, too.

"Well, this is just neat," Buffy smiled. She was awful cute when she smiled. It must run in the family.

"There's a swimming hole downstream a ways. We could swim later, if you want."

"Maybe. I don't have a swimsuit or anything, and I don't know what Dawn's getting me."

"Well, people do skinny-dip," Clark offered tentatively.

"Clark Kent!"

"What?" Clark could feel his face getting hot. He didn't mean it like that! "I just mean, I mean it's way out in the country, and probably no one would see you -- alone! Not with me or anything! I mean...."

Buffy was laughing herself breathless. Clark stopped feeling so self-conscious and started getting a little worried that she might choke. After a while, she finally stood up straight, wiped her eyes, and caught her breath.

"You done?" Clark asked with his eyebrows raised. He felt a little bit insulted, and he was trying to look cool and grown-up.

"Yeah," Buffy gasped. She waded out of the water, shook her feet off, and put the sandals back on. Then she patted his shoulder. With him sitting on the rock and her standing next to him, his shoulders were about on a level with hers. "I like you, Clark," she told him, smiling. "I hope you and Dawn get along forever."

Clark didn't know what to say in reply to that, but it gave him a warm feeling inside. He put his socks and boots on, and they went back up to the house.

Dawn felt smug as she sat on the Kents' front porch with a glass of iced peppermint tea. Lex was inside playing with Cara. Buffy's new clothes were hanging up on the clothesline, almost dry in the amazing Midwestern July heat. Mrs. Kent was making dinner -- Dawn had cut up the cucumbers and tomatoes for the salad and been sent outside. She felt like she and Buffy were making a good impression on the Kents, which was nice, and Lex was starting to strike her as somebody who might actually be good for Buffy. Not that it would take much to be better than all the other contenders for that title, but still.

Clark and Buffy approached the house, laughing. Oh, that was good to see.

"Hi, you two!" she shouted. "Did you have a nice time?"

"We really really did," Buffy answered. "Your boyfriend invited me to go skinny-dipping."

"What?" Clark sputtered. "I did not! I, I, I...."

The Summers girls both laughed at him. Dawn thought he was probably making a bigger production of his indignation than he really felt. The big guy had to be a pretty good actor, after all, to pull off that whole Clark Kent/Superman dual identity thing.

"Kids!" Clark's mom called. "Dinner! Come on in and wash up!"

"Go ahead. I've gotta have a word with my boyfriend." She didn't think she was really fooling anyone with her fake growl.

Buffy smiled at them and went in. Yes, indeed -- good to see. Dawn grabbed Clark by his massive arm and hugged him tight. "Thanks for getting her to laugh again."

He was beaming at her. "Glad to help."

Retirement woulda been a lot more fun if Marie had lived to share it with him.

Joe Stonetree popped another beer tab, levered his Barcalounger backwards, and sighed heavily, like a whale. The Blue Jays sucked this year, too. He downed half his beer, and snarled at the TV.

The doorbell rang.

Joe stabbed the mute button and set the beer down. He heaved another gigantic sigh, got his massive bulk upright, and pulled his ratty old bathrobe closed in front. Who would be ringing his bell at this hour?

It was a stranger, a skinny white guy with dark circles under his eyes and a wrinkled suit that looked like it had been slept in. Not that Joe had any right to complain about anybody's clothes.

"Can I help you?" Stonetree asked.

"I hope so," the stranger replied intensely. "I need to locate Nick Knight, Detective Nick Knight, right away."

"Huh. I'm afraid he's gone."

The guy looked almost staggered by that news. "What about Detective Schanke, or Dr. Lambert from the Medical Examiner's Office?"

"They're dead."

The guy sagged, just sagged. "What, all of them?" he whispered.

Joe didn't want to help this guy; he wanted to go back to his ballgame and his beer. On the other hand, the Blue Jays were a national disgrace, and the stranger looked like he really needed the help.

Protect and Serve.

Stonetree sighed yet again. "Hey, buddy, you look like somebody just shot your dog. You wanna tell me about it?"

"You wouldn't believe me," his visitor said, shaking his head and making as if to leave the porch.

"Huh. You'd be surprised what I'd believe." Stonetree stood aside from the doorway and gestured. The stranger looked at him dubiously for a long minute, then came in.

"Siddown. Make yourself at home." Joe turned the TV off and lumbered into the kitchen. "You wanna beer?"

At first, Buffy wasn't sure she saw them.

Martha and Jonathan Kent had insisted that they wanted to do the dinner dishes, and the young people could best make themselves useful by taking Cara outside and letting her tire herself out before bedtime.

Clark set up the lawn chairs. Lex disappeared into the house and brought out five glasses of lemonade on an old tin tray. By the time he got back, Clark and Dawn had joined Cara in her rushing-around-the-yard-and-shrieking game, so he just handed Buffy her glass and set the tray down on Clark's chair.

"It's a pretty evening," Buffy commented as Lex sat down next to her. "You never get a sky like that in California."

Lex looked up at the big dramatic clouds, scenically lit with the shifting colors of sunset, as if he'd never thought of it before. After a minute he said, "It's the climate, of course. Cumulo-nimbus clouds are unusual where you live."

"Uh huh," she agreed. Then she saw them, or thought she did. "Um. Do you see those?"

Lex looked, and didn't seem to notice anything. "What?" he asked.

Buffy swallowed hard and faced up to it -- she was seeing things again. She took a deep breath. "Those little wandering lights, out there by the bushes?"

Unexpectedly, Lex laughed. "Lightning bugs. Also known as fireflies. Bio-luminescent beetles of the order --"

"Oh, thank God. I was afraid it was something evil that only I could see."

Lex shook his head a little and smiled. He had a nice smile, and he looked at her in a way that no one had looked at her in a long, long time. "They're just bugs," he reassured her.

"Not evil then? Good, good."

"Want me to catch you one?" Clark interrupted.

"No, let me!" Cara shrieked.

"Race ya!" Clark challenged, and the two Kent kids were off like a shot.

Dawn flopped down in a lawn chair, and Lex handed her a drink.

"Thanks!" she huffed. "I so cannot keep up with them!"

"Well, they are faster than a speeding bullet," Buffy pointed out, laughing. It was years since she'd laughed as much as she had today.

"No kidding!" Dawn exclaimed.

"Buffy! Buffy! I caught you a lightnin' bug! I'm being very gentle with it, too!" Cara appeared out of thin air, right next to Buffy's chair. She had her chubby little hands cupped together, only touching on the edges. She opened them slowly, and Buffy could see the insect. It really was some sort of beetle, she saw, not very big, and its butt turned on and off.

"That's really weird," she said.

Dawn rolled her eyes. "This from the Vampire Slayer!"

The bug flew away. Cara squealed happily and ran to tell her Mama that she'd caught one without squishing him.

Clark followed her in, then came back and took the tray into the house. Finally, he returned again, took his glass from Dawn (she'd snagged it when he picked up the tray) and joined the others.

"Do you suppose I was that much of a handful when I was that age?"

Everybody laughed at him, and he blushed. Or maybe it was just the last red light of sunset on his face.

"So. Lightning bugs," Buffy said. "Not evil, huh?"

"Just bugs," Dawn said, unconsciously echoing Lex's earlier assertion.

"These mosquitoes, on the other hand," Lex said, brushing one from his head.

"They don't bother me," Clark bragged.

"Me either," Dawn added. She didn't volunteer any possible reasons. Buffy approved of her sister's reticence, although she supposed it probably wasn't really fair that the Summers girls knew Clark was Superman, but he didn't know that Dawn was the Key. Oh, well. It would probably all sort itself out, one way or another.

"Are you sure you have to go back to Metropolis tonight?" Clark asked, giving Dawn the big puppy eyes.

Buffy rolled her eyes at the tone of voice, and noticed Lex doing the same thing. He noticed her, too, and they silently shared the snark with a smile.

Dawn had Clark's big hands in her own. "I'm sorry, baby," she said. "But I have to get this stuff done at the lab."

"I know," Clark pouted.

Buffy managed to turn her reflexive gagging reaction into a fairly innocuous cough. "Are you all packed up, Dawnie?" she asked, in her bossiest big-sister manner.

Now Dawn rolled her eyes. "Yes, Buffy. All packed up and ready to go."

"Are you all packed up, Lex?" Buffy asked.

He gave her a very amused look. "No need to take that tone with me. You're not my big sister."

"Thank God!" she exclaimed, and grabbed his hand. "Wanna take a walk down to the crick? Give Clark and Dawnie a chance to say their good-byes before you have to drive back to Metropolis tonight?" She didn't add aloud that she wanted a chance to say a proper good-bye to Lex, too, but it was obvious that he picked up on it.

"Absolutely," he replied. "We'll be back in an hour or so, ready to drive back to the city. You'll be ready, kids?"

"Kids?" Clark sputtered indignantly.

"An hour," Dawn added sweetly.

"Or so," Buffy answered her.

"Huh. Let me get this straight," rumbled former Captain Stonetree, contemplatively swigging beer. "Alien invasion, international guvmint conspiracy, end of the human race. Did I leave anything out?"

Mulder didn't know why he even tried telling this story any more. "I said you wouldn't believe it."

"Nah. I believe it."

Mulder looked closely at the big man. It was hard to tell whether he was joking or not.

Stonetree seemed to understand his doubts. He smiled and clapped Mulder on the shoulder, nearly toppling him from the spindly kitchen chair. "Smile, kid. Have another beer. I'm gonna go put some clothes on, and then we'll hit the road."

"You know where Knight might be?" Mulder didn't get his hopes up.

"Somethin' else." There was the sound of drawers opening and closing from the other room.

"What? Where are we going?" Mulder felt like things were careening past him, out of control. Again.

Stonetree re-appeared, wearing a big baggy brown suit, a really strange-looking tie, and a porkpie hat a la Buster Keaton. Mulder blinked and blinked again, but the vision remained.

"Kansas," Stonetree answered.

From The Daily Planet, front page, below the fold (first front-page byline for cub reporter Lois Lane! She was so proud when they put the paper to bed!):

PRESIDENT PLANS VISIT TO METROPOLIS

     President Bush will be spending Independence Day in Metropolis, breaking years of tradition.  "America's Heartland is the heart of America, not Washington, D.C.," the President said.  "As the most prominent city in America's Heartland, Metropolis is the ideal place for me to be this Fourth of July."
     Civic authorities have arranged for an even more spectacular than usual fireworks display, and all streets downtown will be closed by order of the mayor's office, as a security precaution.
     We at The Daily Planet believe that the President shouldn't worry about his safety in Metropolis.  After all, Superman is here!

The skinny kid looked kinda upset. Lotta people got that way when there's trouble, big trouble like this especially. He was still in there swinging, though, and Stonetree honored him for it.

Joe hadn't felt this alive since Marie had gone.

Still, small talk -- put the kid at ease a little. "What's your name?" Stonetree asked, pulling open the garage door. Its spring hinges wailed in protest -- didn't get much use.

Standing well back, the guy looked blank for a moment, then shook his head a little and said, "Mulder. I'm Fox Mulder." Mebbe four beers had been too many for him. Kid probably didn't eat enough.

"Pleased to meetcha, Fox. Call me Joe," he replied, securing the old-fashioned door open and pulling the chain-light on.

Mulder was still shaking his head. Yeah. Four was too many beers. "What? Why Kansas?" he asked.

"Heh. You said the Navajo you knew were gone when you went back. The ones who told you about the trouble." Stonetree popped the trunk on the old turquoise Caddy and put in his bag.

"Yeah. Wait. Is that Knight's car?"

"Yup. You have a bag, Fox?"

"I. Wait. Why are...?"

"Gimme your keys." The old habit of command was strong -- the intoxicated ex-FBI man just fished them out of his pocket and handed them over. Stonetree identified the other's car without trouble, opened its trunk, and swept up its contents. There was plenty of room leftover in the Cadillac's trunk, even after he stowed all Mulder's gear.

Mulder was watching him, dubious and unsteady. "Why do you have Knight's car?"

"He left it behind." Stonetree opened the door. "Get in."

Mulder took a deep breath and just looked at Stonetree for a second. Stonetree tried to look like a guy who knew what he was doing. Mulder got in and fastened the lap-belt. "Kansas, huh?"

Stonetree had only driven the Cadillac once, when he'd put Nick's things into storage.

Marie had laughed at him when he'd raved about the smoothness of the ride.

She used to laugh a lot.

"Why do you have Detective Knight's car?"

"He left everything behind when he disappeared. It was the night his new partner died. And Natalie," the big man reminisced as he eased it out of the garage.

"What happened to them?"

"Captain Reese tried to blame Detective Vetter's death on Nick. A perp-in-custody got hold of somebody's gun."

"Nick's?" The Ex-FBI-man sounded skeptical.

Stonetree snorted. "Nah. No one's that fast. One of Reese's boys. But Nick was there when Tracy bought it, and Reese was spreading the blame around. The Commissioner had his head on a plate, regardless, but Nick was gone by then. Disappeared without a trace."

"What about Dr. Lambert?"

Stonetree stopped at an otherwise unoccupied red light, and eyed the Yank appraisingly. Then he returned his attention to the road.

"She was found on the floor of Nick's apartment. Drained of blood. She had two little holes in her neck."

"Damn," Mulder whispered.

Stonetree heaved a sigh. "Yeah."

They drove on a while in silence.

Then Stonetree said, "Let me tell you the legend of Naman and Segeeth."

Early Tuesday morning, Buffy was awakened by an excited toddler bouncing on her bed (well, actually it was Clark's bed, but he was sleeping in the barn loft while Buffy was staying with the Kents.) It was already hot, though nothing like how hot it would get later, and she'd tumbled Clark's blue sheet and red blanket off onto the floor during the night.

"Wake up!" Cara said importantly. "We're burnin' daylight!"

"Burnin' daylight, huh?" Buffy asked the little girl. "What does that even mean?"

Cara told her something long and involved about cows and getting up. Meanwhile, Buffy gathered an armful of blessedly clean clothes and her brand-new hairbrush, and headed for the bathroom. "It means everyone's up but you!" Cara finally finished.

"I better hurry and get dressed then," Buffy said brightly. Cara nodded enthusiastically. "'Scuse me!" Buffy chirped, closing the bathroom door before the girl could follow her in.

She heard Cara racing down the stairs, bellowing, "Mama! Buffy's up!"

"Oh, Cara!" began Mrs. Kent's reply, but Buffy lost the rest in laughing. Little sisters were all the same.

When Buffy got down to the kitchen, Clark and his dad were just finishing their breakfast. Mr. Kent was scowling at the newspaper, and Clark looked worried.

"It sounds like they just expect you to drop everything, and provide all the security for this dang political dog-and-pony show of theirs!" Jonathan exclaimed, throwing the paper down disgustedly and barely managing to not upset the milk. "With never a by-your-leave!" he fumed.

"I know, but what else can I do? It's the president of the United States!"

Mrs. Kent put a plate of eggs, fruit and toast on the table next to Cara, and beckoned for Buffy to sit. "So called," she commented.

"Now, Martha --" Jonathan began, but Clark interrupted.

"No matter what you think of the man, you gotta respect the office," Clark said. "And if he's in my city, I have to protect him."

Martha looked at Clark in surprise to hear him call Metropolis 'his city,' but Jonathan didn't seem to pick up on that part. "You have work to do here at home!" he insisted.

"Dad," Clark said, "I'll do what I have to do." He got up from the table and left the house.

"Me'n Buffy can do Clark's chores," Cara volunteered, face covered with jam. "We're very strong girls."

"Absolutely!" Buffy found herself agreeing. "I feel weird not helping out."

"That's settled then!" Cara declared with an enthusiastic nod.

Jonathan and Martha couldn't seem to help laughing at that.

Lex's early-morning meeting with his father's lawyers had gone about as well as could be expected. He thought perhaps Lionel selected them for their hostility. To be fair, some of them had been working for the Luthor family long enough to remember various legal problems he'd had during his misspent youth, but he certainly didn't intend to allow them any advantage from that.

Despite everything Dominic tried, it seemed clear that Lionel intended for Lex to manage LuthorCorp in the case of any sudden disability. Dominic tried his hardest to insinuate that Lex was responsible for Lionel's injuries, but all the police and medical reports were against him, and he finally had to resort to innuendo and pouting.

Lex was used to the innuendo, and Dominic didn't pout nearly as well as Clark did. The meeting ground to its inevitable conclusion; papers were signed; Dominic grudgingly turned over Lionel's day-planner (Lex wasn't about to trust Mr. Senatori to mind it for him) and Lex was free to step out into the blazing, sticky city summer and look for his car.

As he settled into the comfortable leather, he decided that he'd performed enough unpleasant duties for one morning. He'd postpone visiting Dad in the hospital until tomorrow, and putting the fear of Lex into Dad's LuthorCorp minions until after lunch, which he would have with someone nice.

Lex had gotten hands-free cell phones installed in all his cars. He made a quick reservation for two at his favorite downtown lunch spot. Then he called Metropolis University's main information number, and spent a few minutes being pleasant to assorted office workers before getting the number for Dawn's lab.

"Lab Seven."

"Dawn, it's Lex. Would you like to come out for an early lunch today?"

"Aren't you busy being a big-time tycoon?" she asked archly.

"I've done more double-talking this morning than most people do all day. I want a break, and I thought maybe you could come keep me company."

"I should be at a convenient stopping-point in about twenty-five minutes. I gotta warn you that I don't have time for any three-hour business lunch."

Lex laughed. "I'll come pick you up."

"Oooh! I can show you my doohickey! It's not finished, though."

"Great!" Lex chuckled. "See you soon."

Feeling torn was getting to be a way of life, Clark thought. He supposed he'd better get used to it.

"I wish I didn't have to ask you to do this," he said again.

"Clark!" Buffy exclaimed. She sounded like she was getting a little exasperated with him. "I already told you! This will be a vacation for me! If your dad's willing to let me have the chance to mess up his stuff --"

"It's really hard to break dirt, actually."

Buffy grinned at him for that one. "Well, good!" she declared. "'Cause I gotta tell you, my yard at home is pretty much a distressed area."

"I'm not worried about that. Mainly, I wanna make sure there's someone to help Dad with the two-man jobs. And, you know, don't let him, um...."

"Blow me off, over-do, and hurt himself. I get it."

"I'll do what I can at night, or --"

"Speaking as the more experienced evil-fighter, you prolly want to patrol Metropolis at night, and do your home-on-the-farm thing around, like 10 am to noonish. Take a nap after lunch. Once the prez is here, anyhow -- how much sleep do you need?"

It amused Clark to see the tiny blonde woman getting all 'as the more-experienced evil-fighter' on him, but he wasn't quite dumb enough to let her see that. "Less and less as I get older," he answered. "I haven't really checked out all my limits -- they seem to keep shifting. You know, it's really neat to have somebody to talk to about this stuff."

"Well, yeah. You sort of do need a Watcher, I guess. Otherwise you're just all on your own -- trial and error."

"Dawn told me a little about Mr. Giles. He sounds like a good guy. I wasn't all on my own, though. My folks and then Pete always helped, and there was a lot of stuff kind of written in the caves."

"As keen as cryptic underground prophecies can be, I still think it works out better with an actual person to tell you stuff."

"I guess it's a good thing I grew up in Smallville. Local mutants to practice on." Local mutants that are all my fault, Clark thought.

"Not your fault, doofus!" Buffy said, whapping him on the arm just hard enough to feel. Clark wondered if Slayers could read alien minds. Stranger things had happened. "You were three! Cara's age! You wouldn't blame her for something like that! Now, show me how this farm-stuff works."

"Okay. Right." Clark effortlessly lifted another huge milk can up into the back of the truck. Buffy watched how he arranged it neatly against the others, then copied him. She seemed to handle it easily. "It's a little old-fashioned," Clark said. "The big dairy operations use tanker trucks, but the organic creamery outside Grandville does business with small farmers all over the county, and we're kind of idiosyncratic."

"Understatement!" Buffy commented.

Clark flashed her a grin. "So you can load up the truck and deliver the milk while Dad's disassembling and sterilizing the milking machine."

"Which is the skilled job," Buffy put in, hoisting another umpteen-gallon can. "I'm no good at all with machinery invented after about 1520, but I can drive. Finally. Stick, even!"

Clark put up the last can and showed her how to secure the back. "Great!" he said. "Why don't you drive, and I'll give you directions, and then tomorrow you'll know just how to get there!"

"Sounds like a plan!"

Lex found that picking his way through the dimly-lit subterranean corridors leading to Lab Seven was unexpectedly enjoyable. Who knew that cheap linoleum and grubby institutional cinderblock walls could evoke a sense of nostalgia in him? From the inside, this low-level laboratory building strongly resembled the ones he'd known as an undergraduate. Briefly, he considered lunching with Dawn wherever it was that she usually ate, but he discarded the notion almost immediately. It was almost sure to be somewhere greasy and cheap, and he wasn't nineteen any more.

The door to Dawn's lab, like most of the others along this hallway, was wide open. Lex politely stopped at the threshold and said, "Knock knock."

Dawn stopped frowning at her apparatus and looked round. Her shiny brown hair gleamed warmly in the cheap fluorescent light as she swung her gaze up to meet his eyes. "Who's there?" she teased.

Lex chuckled, partly at the lame joke, but mainly because it felt so good to see a friendly face after spending the morning with the LuthorCorp lawyers. "Your lunch date. Ready to go?"

"Just about. I wanna run this once and record the --" Dawn squeaked and fell off her lab stool when the apparatus made a loud popping noise and showered the workbench with sparks. The lights wavered and went out all up and down the corridor, and the dim yellow emergency-lights came on.

Lex hurried to Dawn's side and helped her to her feet. "Was it supposed to do that?" he asked dryly.

"No!" she sputtered. "There's no flipping way that could have happened! It was set to -- well, okay, if there had been a dimensional rift right here, at the same moment I put the power to it, but I'm sure I would have noticed Olaf the Troll suddenly popping into my lab!

"Maybe somebody else was pulling almost enough electricity to pop the breaker already, and you just pushed it over the edge," Lex suggested.

"I guess," Dawn said dubiously, as she set all the switches to OFF and then, brow wrinkled in thought, disconnected the power cable. Lex politely ushered her out, but she stopped a few paces down the corridor and turned back to close and lock the door.

Most of the other lab doors they passed had been left open when their researchers had abandoned their work after the power failure.

Lex decided he'd have to get considerably more information on this little project of Dawn's over lunch.

"This is a terrific lunch, Mrs. Kent," Buffy said.

"Call me Martha, Buffy," Clark's Mom told her.

It's like there's light in her when she smiles, Clark thought, passing round the biscuits. It's more there than it was in Sunnydale, and it was almost gone when I picked her up in LuthorCorp Tower, but it's coming back for sure. No wonder Dawn was so happy yesterday that I made her laugh.

"Earth to Clark?" There was that laugh again.

"Huh?" Clark asked brilliantly.

"The milk, please?" Buffy repeated politely. Now Mom and Dad were laughing, too, and Cara was practically crowing.

Clark felt his face go red. Oh, well. Someday he'd probably learn how to listen and think and maybe even do a few things all at the same time. It couldn't be that much harder than flying.

"The baked goods are cooling," Mom said. "If you want to learn the delivery route, Buffy, you'd better go along with Clark this afternoon."

"I'm looking forward to it." Yeah, cute sure ran in Dawn's family.

"I'm comin' too!" Cara declared. She had jam on her face again.

"Now, sweetie, you need to take a nap after lunch," Mom said reasonably.

Clark would've been willing to bet cash money that Cara's next words would be something like "No I don't; I'm big now!"

The little girl surprised him and his folks by saying instead, "Uh huh, I know. I'm done. May I please be excused?"

"You sure that's all you want, honey? Everybody else is still eatin' dinner," Dad smiled at her.

"I finished my milk, and if I take my nap now right away, I might wake up in time to go with Buffy 'n' Clark." She put her chin up and tried to look tall.

Dad chuckled, and Mom smiled. "All righty, then," Dad told her. "Remember to wash your hands and face before you go lie down."

"I will," Cara promised. She took her plate and cup to the sink, and then headed on upstairs.

Clark noticed Buffy looking quietly proud. "Did you tell her to do that?" he asked.

"I just told her that people would be more willing to treat her like a grown-up if she does the things she knows she has to without complaining. Nobody likes a whiner, and it never does any good anyway."

"That's very wise," Mom said softly. She was looking at Buffy sort of the way she looked at Lex sometimes, like she wished she was their Mom, too.

"Well, you know. Wisdom's what happens when you forget to duck. Besides, I might need Cara along delivering stuff. She says she never gets lost."

"Yup. Must be a Kryptonian thing." Clark knew he always sounded a little smug when he referred, no matter how indirectly, to Cara's abilities. Saving her and Mom had been the first time he'd come up with a plan, a good, quick plan that had really worked. Before that, he'd never thought that was a skill he even might have, but it turned out that, as Superman anyhow, he could do that a lot.

"If only it were a Slayer thing," Buffy said wryly.

Mulder awoke with a start. His eyes felt gritty, and he might be hung-over. It only took a moment for him to remember everything. "Where are we?" he rasped.

"Tourist Information Center, Steuben County, Indiana," his companion rumbled. Ex-Captain Stonetree, or rather Joe, was stretching and twisting in his seat, making the whole car move, despite its impressive suspension. The engine was stopped; they were parked in front of a nicely-landscaped, modern-looking building with a lot of dark-tinted windows.

It was a hot day, bright and humid. The 1962 Caddy didn't have a working air-conditioner. Stonetree opened his door and got out, grunting. "Gotta stretch my legs a little," he told Mulder, bending over awkwardly to get his head back in through the window. "You go on back to sleep if you want."

Mulder didn't feel like sleeping any more. He got out, too, first double-checking that the doors were locked, that Joe had taken the keys, and that the windows were mostly closed, then followed Joe into the building. It was cool inside. Joe headed straight for the Men's Room, and Mulder tagged along. There was nobody else around. Mulder ignored the sounds coming from Joe's stall, and ran cold water on his arms, splashing his face. Yeah, hung-over. Eventually he just put his head under the tap.

Finally Stonetree finished. "Aah," he said, approaching the sink. As he washed up, he looked at Mulder in concern. "You okay, Fox?" he asked.

Mulder straightened up and shook the water off. Oog. Shaking like that had been a mistake. "What about the end of the world?"

"Don't worry. We're on it." Mulder wished he shared the old man's confidence. "There's an EconoLodge outside Fort Wayne. We'll get four-five hours' sleep, then continue on to find the caves."

"What?" Mulder protested. "We don't have time for that!"

"Sure we do. More haste less speed. I'm about too tired to steer, and you can't drive. Look at you."

Mulder had to admit the old guy had a point, but he didn't have to admit it out loud. "We're up against a pretty serious deadline here, Joe."

"Yeah, I know. Don't worry. We'll get there; we'll get help. If we crash the car in Indiana, Naman and Segeeth will have no warning."

Mulder knew he was clinging to straws. He'd never heard of this Kawatche legend before, and Stonetree seemed to be taking this all too calmly. He had an ace up his sleeve, though. It was a slimmer chance than Nick Knight had been; Mulder had seen the vampire cop fight alien invaders with his own eyes. However, there were stories out of Kansas, some woman at the Metropolis Daily Planet claimed that city had a superhero, an alien protector who flew around in garish tights and a cape, helping the helpless. If he weren't just a circulation ploy, and if Mulder could get to him, he might be enough to turn the tide. It wasn't any worse a hope than anything else. He was still in there swinging.

And on his way to Kansas.

"This is a nice lunch place," Dawn commented, eyebrows raised. There hadn't been anything on the menu under fifteen dollars. She was glad she'd worn the green cap-sleeve top this morning, instead of a tee-shirt with cartoon animals or witty sayings, and that her ratty gym shorts had suffered a catastrophic oatmeal encounter, forcing a change to the more-respectable khakis.

Lex did that infuriatingly elegant almost-shrug thing of his. His only concession to the weather was that his pale lavender business shirt had one button open at the throat, and he wasn't wearing a tie. "I'm incredibly curious about your research," he said with an ingratiating smile.

"I'm incredibly curious about what happened back there!" Dawn declared. "I was thinking about it again on the ride over." She did not add that she'd been using her speculations to avoid paying attention to their certain imminent deaths, based on the driving habits of the Metropolis populace. "Even if there had been a high load average on the lab electrical system, it shouldn't have gone like that. We could've blown a fuse, sure, well, flipped a circuit breaker really, but those sparks mean something else."

"So it's a dimensional rift detector?"

"It's an interdimensional transport device. Well, it will be, when it's finished." Dawn knocked the underside of the table for luck. "The number one thing is the steering, of course."

"Of course," Lex murmured.

"No, really! Dimensional travel itself isn't all that hard. There are spells for it, at least, and they work. Well, kind of. Mostly. Anyhow, I'm sure I can figure that part out. But even a hot witch who knows exactly what she's doing has trouble with the steering. Willow once said it's like trying to hit a puppy by throwing a live bee at it, and since I've been working on the problem I've decided she was being optimistic. She left out the blindfold, and the cross-wind, and the bee-booze, and the herds of rampaging bunnies." Dawn noticed the waiter staring at her, and stared back until he put down their orders and left.

"So you're working on the guidance system first."

"Exactly! There has to be a certain topology of the n-dimensional surfaces, and I've put together an algorithm and a detector. A few years ago it would have been impossible to even think of mapping anything that complex with a computer, but linking a few PC's even, is just about fast enough now. The detector's the thing, the first main big thing, because nobody before has even thought of trying it."

"That's what blew up on you today."

"Yes! See, witches don't traditionally think of a technological process, and tech guys typically don't know anything about this stuff. But I was practically brought up by Willow Rosenberg, and she's the shiznits in both. Plus I'm the -- well, I've always had a special feeling for dimensional stuff. Once they got into real actual math and science at school, instead of all that picture-book-counting-group-save-the-panda-bears stuff they used from K through ten, I could see how it all related, and I had Willow there to explain the tricky parts."

"I assume you'll be calling her wondering what happened."

"No kidding. Well. What it could have been would be -- here." Dawn pushed her plate out of the way and took a notebook out of her bag. Lex leaned over a little to look at what she was writing. "This is the distance equation. First approx, anyhow." Their meals grew cold as she defined her terms and explained the derivations. Lex really seemed to be following along. Nobody else but Willow had ever let her go on for five minutes of this stuff without glazing over and telling her to stop. Smart, as well as gorgeous and rich -- she sure hoped Buffy would get to keep him.

Lex put his hand on the paper. "Here. Look at this term. You said we would've noticed Alfy the Troll --"

"Olaf," Dawn corrected quietly.

Lex went on as if he hadn't heard her. "-- suddenly appearing in the lab. But if the disturbance were large enough, it could have the same effect from much farther away."

"Ooh!" He was right, of course. Dawn flipped over to the grid side of the paper and quickly started estimating a mass-distance curve. "So here, and here.... Troll in the same room, elephant in the building (which I also think we would've noticed), building on campus -- did you notice any new buildings as we were driving out, Lex?"

"Appearing or disappearing?"

"Aircraft carrier somewhere in this country --"

"We'll have to check the newspapers in the morning," Lex smirked. She got the feeling he wasn't exactly taking this seriously.

"Small asteroid in orbit, Death Star in the Oort Cloud."

Lex just looked at her. She double-checked her figures, with a growing and familiar sensation at the back of her neck. Did worldwide catastrophes just follow her from state to state?

"Darn," Dawn said faintly.

Now Lex looked a little more serious. He pulled her paper over to his place, and studied the equations more closely.

"It doesn't necessarily mean anything," Dawn tried to convince herself, and failed woefully. "It could have just been a power system thing. Maybe. Or...."

Lex's expression was one she'd seen on Xander's face sometimes, and on Buffy's. He looked like someone who knew that the worst explanation was the most likely to be true. She wondered how his life had been worse than Clark's, that he could wear that face and Clark never did.

"We don't know anything from just one data point."

That made sense. "I'll fix my apparatus. I have to before Saturday, anyhow."

Lex finally began eating his lunch, so Dawn followed suit. "I'll help," he promised.

Cara's big plan worked just as she'd hoped it would. She woke up from her nap and tore downstairs, and Mama was just putting the last box of cake and pie and stuff in the front seat.

"Mama! I'm awake! Can I come too?"

Mama looked around as if she hadn't seen Cara before. Clark and Daddy came round from the barn, and Buffy was tagging along with. "There you are, sweetie!" Mama gave her a squeeze.

"Hey, Cara! Glad you're up! Buffy was just asking about you," Clark said. Cara squiggled free from Mama's hug.

"Can I come?" she repeated.

Buffy smiled brightly at her. "I know I'll be glad to have you along!"

Daddy brought over the booster seat from Mama's little car. Buffy shoved the boxes around to make room. Cara bounced up and down. Mama said, "Cara, you better go use the bathroom first." Cara almost argued, but she saw Buffy looking at her, and remembered what she said before.

When she got back, Clark boosted her into the booster seat and put the seatbelt on. Buffy got in next to her. Cara told her to put her seatbelt on, too. Clark got in. Cara told him to put his seatbelt on. Clark laughed, but he did what she said!

"Okay, Cara, you pay attention to the route. Tomorrow I'm driving it, and you'll have to help me not get lost," Buffy said.

"Okay!" Cara felt proud. She waved bye to Mama and Daddy.

Then all three of them drove away to do the deliveries.

"So, you deliver stuff all over the place here," Buffy said at last, when they were done and on their way back to the Kents'.

"That's how we keep in business," Clark said. Cara was diligently watching out the windows. They'd told her that she was the navigator for the next day's delivery run, and then they'd explained what a navigator was. She had promised to "not let Buffy get lost."

"To Metropolis, too. I saw you take off with some stuff when Cara was napping."

"Yeah." Clark was silent for a little while, eyes responsibly on the road. Then he sighed loudly and said, "Buffy?"

"Right here," she chirped.

"Lex told me you once said that the Sunnydale Police had a 'strict anti-Buffy policy.' I've never really run into that before. But now.... I was in Metropolis to make my deliveries, while Cara was sleeping and you and Mom were making up the boxes. So, I changed into, you know, and I went to just kind of get the lay of the land, for when the President's here. That's less than a week! And when I went around checking stuff out, there were these guys...."

"Secret Service?"

"Yeah, I guess. I went to talk to them first, 'cause, you know, cooperation with legitimate law enforcement authorities is important."

Buffy raised her eyebrows in disbelief, but she managed not to comment out loud. Clark looked really upset about this. She reminded herself that he was a kid; okay, yes, huge and hulking and able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but not really any more mature than Dawn.

"They pulled their guns on me! They said get lost or they'd call out the Air National Guard! They threatened to arrest me! You'd think that Superman worked for Al Qaeda or something!"

Buffy tried not to laugh at how outraged he was. She failed.

Fortunately, her laughter made Clark smile instead of getting even more upset. "How do you deal with that?" he asked.

"What did you do?"

"I put my hands out to look harmless and backed off slowly, like with a mad dog or something. I hope they wouldn't have opened fire in the middle of the doggone city, but by then I wasn't any too sure. Then I did my surveillance and got a little idea of what was what from a lot further away, so they couldn't see me and get all hysterical again. I didn't stay long, 'cause I had to get home. I'll check them out some more tomorrow, staying further back."

"Sounds good. I always try to go around the police, or authorities of any kind, really. Just avoid them. Sometimes it works; sometimes it doesn't."

"What do you do if it doesn't?"

"Break out of jail and take care of what I have to. Just 'cause they're jerks doesn't mean I get to ditch my sacred duty."

"Yeah." Clark nodded and looked like he was thinking it over. "You know? Another thing -- they weren't setting up the way I would have."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, when there's somebody you need to protect, or something, there's a way you go about scoping out the area and setting up your watchpoints. They were doing something else."

"I don't really have any grasp of the Theory-of-Bodyguarding. Shouldn't the Secret Service be good at it, though? Maybe they, if you don't mind my saying so, know how to do it better than you do?"

"Maybe. But.... Maybe."

"How do you deal with the regular everyday cops?" Buffy asked.

"Some of 'em like me; some of 'em don't, but leave me do my work anyhow. I guess I mostly go around, like you said. I get along great with the Fire Department, though!"

Buffy laughed again. "Yeah, firefighters are cool! Once I thought maybe I could get a job doing that, but somehow it never worked out."

"I'm gonna be a fireman when I grow up!" Cara declared importantly.

"Good for you!" Buffy told her. Cara was still watching the landmarks (which mainly consisted of five-foot-high stalks of corn in all directions) so they wouldn't get lost tomorrow. "Can I come visit you in your firehouse then?"

"Yes!"

They drove in silence for another little while. The weathered wooden sign for Kent Organic Farm came into view.

"I wonder what the Metropolis Police think of these alleged Secret Service guys?" Buffy wondered out loud.

"Huh," Clark said thoughtfully. "Maybe I should find out."

As they drove into the lane, Cara squealed, "There's Mama!"

"Clark! Buffy!" Mrs. Kent called, waving.

Clark parked the truck, and everybody got out. Cara launched herself at her mother, who caught her with a big smile and an exaggerated "oof!"

"Clark, sweetie, Dawn just called from Metropolis. She and Lex think there's a problem."

"That went well," Mulder sniped as they left the Lowell County Sheriff's Office, bright and early Wednesday morning.

"Woman needs more fiber in her diet," Stonetree agreed.

They'd arrived in Smallville late Tuesday night, had no luck finding the caves or the tribe that Stonetree claimed should be here, and had finally checked into Smallville's one old-fashioned motel, at the edge of its picturesque small-town business district.

Mulder stopped in a patch of sunlight and stretched. It was tiring, believing again that the world might be saved. His companion's truly impressive snoring when they'd stopped to sleep didn't help. "What now, Chief?"

"Don't call me Chief," Joe rumbled. "I know there's a reservation around here somewhere. The Kawatche should be able to tell us what we need to know."

The scent of coffee reached out from a nearby -- movie theater? Whatever. Coffee would be good. "Maybe they can tell us something in here," Mulder suggested. "Coffee shop."

"Good idea."

The inside of the old cinema's lobby had been remodeled into an oddly-decorated coffee bar.

"Sort of an Art Deco/The Mummy's Revenge theme," Mulder commented.

"Fox, be nice," Joe muttered.

A tiny dark-haired girl in pink greeted them with a blinding smile. "Gentlemen. What can I do for you?"

"We'd like a table and a couple of coffees," Mulder said.

"And any information you can give us about the Kawatche Caves," Stonetree added.

She blinked at them for a moment. Then the smile returned. Mulder felt a definite shock. This young woman knew something; he'd half-convinced himself that Stonetree's lead was a total wild goose chase. Small Midwestern town with secrets -- it was familiar, and he felt his investigator's instincts waking up, pins-and-needles, like a sleeping foot.

"Right this way," she said, gesturing them to a small table by the kitchen door. "I'll have to make a ph -- I have some things I need to do, but someone will bring your coffee shortly." The girl disappeared into the kitchen.

"Toldja somebody'd know something," Stonetree gloated.

"I picked the coffee shop. Think she'll talk to us?"

"I'm sure we can rely on your natural charm," Joe retorted, almost with a straight face.

The girl didn't come back. At least the coffee was good.

"I'm Lex Luthor, here to visit Lionel Luthor. Someone should have called earlier."

The woman at the desk checked some papers. "Yes, Mr. Luthor..."

"Lex."

She darted her eyes up at him, and he forced a smile. She smiled back. "Lex. Follow the purple line to the elevators. It's 437, on the fourth floor. Please don't stay more than half an hour."

"Don't worry, I won't."

Lex didn't want to be there. After yesterday's lunch with Dawn, he'd done another seven hours at LuthorCorp. It would have been even longer if Clark hadn't showed up with pie and flowers. Clark forced Lex out of work and over to the University, where they dragged Dawn out of the lab and sat down to a dorm supper of cereal and milk, followed by Mrs. Kent's wonderful rhubarb pie. Over dinner, they'd all agreed (including Buffy on the phone from Smallville) that there was probably nothing to be done about any possible space invasion until it got close enough to see. Then Clark pouted until Lex had to accept the roses his mother had sent, and made him promise to deliver them to Lionel the next day. Finally Clark, proxy-mother-henning accomplished, had Supermanned off, leaving Lex and Dawn to foolishly go back to her lab and work on the damaged interdimensional apparatus until three a.m.

He still didn't know why he'd ignored Clark's parting instructions to "get some rest." Maybe the bossy red-and-blue persona just brought out his inner rebellious brat. In any case, he'd ended up with only three hours' sleep.

Lex had made the resulting bad temper work for him. Every LuthorCorp employee he'd seen that morning had come away from the encounter with a certain sense of caution.

Lex wished he could just leave Lionel to his own devices in the hospital, to recover or not without Lex's assistance. He knew that would be dangerous, though. Dad was at his most devious whenever he seemed helpless -- look at that whole ugly prior episode of 'blindness.'

Besides, he'd gotten one incoherent phone message from Lana already that morning, warning him that his dad had a couple of hired goons going around Smallville to try and get the Kawatche Caves away from LexCorp again. That whole stupid tug-of-war had become pretty damn important, once he knew what Clark really was, what the ancient Indian information in the caves really meant. He couldn't let Lionel get that much leverage over Clark. He had to find out what the old bastard was up to.

Unfortunately, the show of temper that had worked so well on the minions probably wouldn't work on Dad. Lionel had better be thoroughly debilitated by his injuries, or this upcoming conversation was going to be horribly one-sided.

The door was (what else?) purple. Lex squared his shoulders and went in.

Lionel was propped up in the bed. The broken arm was encased in an elaborate brace, and the other arm was hooked to an IV and a couple of monitors. His ruined eyes were heavily bandaged.

Lex couldn't tell whether he was awake or not. The uncertainty was strangely disturbing.

"Dad?" Lex asked quietly.

Lionel started. "Who's there? Lex?"

Lex sighed and sat down in the bedside visitor's chair. "Yeah, it's me. What can I do for you?"

"Lex," the old man rasped. He moved restlessly and stretched out his good arm, trailing tubes and wires. Lex could only stand to watch his father's blind groping for a moment before taking his hand.

"I'm right here, Dad."

"Don't tell your mother."

"What?" Lex asked, startled and a little horrified.

"She doesn't need to know. About Rachel. Tell her it was a disgruntled employee. She'll believe you. And it's even true." Lionel's attempt at a carefree chuckle was horrible to hear. He didn't sound like he was shamming.

Of course, he wouldn't.

Lex couldn't think of anything to say.

"She hasn't been to visit. She must be furious. Tell her, it's... It's not what she thinks. I...." Lionel's head rolled back and forth against the pillow. "Is it the baby? They don't allow children during visitors' hours. She should leave him with that damn friend of hers. The nanny. Why?"

"It's okay, Dad," Lex interrupted. He hesitantly put his free hand on his father's forehead. Lionel quit tossing at his son's touch. Lex didn't think a forehead should feel that blazing hot. "I'm going to go get a nurse, now."

"No," Lionel protested. His grip tightened on Lex's hand, but it was weak, and Lex untangled himself without much difficulty. This was worse than the time after the tornado.

"I'm just going to get a nurse. It'll only take a moment. I promise."

Lionel's voice followed him out of the room. "Lex! You have to tell her!"

Lex got a nurse, then slipped silently away while she busied herself with his father's IV. If Lionel wasn't behind the inquiries about the caves, who was?

Lt. Maggie Sawyer's office was on the third floor of Metropolis PD HQ downtown. Superman loitered within a mile of the building, X-ray-telescopic-vision peering, for almost an hour before she was there and alone.

In that time, he stopped one mugging, scowled effectively at a guy who was about to slug his girlfriend, and rescued a kitten from a tree.

He also kept a long-distance eye on the Secret Service preparations. They still didn't look right, and he was getting seriously worried. The President of the United States was due to arrive in just a few days.

Finally, the Lieutenant seemed available, and Superman sped to her window. He stopped and gave himself a second before stepping collectedly onto the sill. Fortunately, the building was old enough to have windows that actually opened, and they were always ajar in the summertime.

"Superman," Lt. Sawyer said in a long-suffering voice. "Just what this day needed."

Clark Kent would have ducked and stammered at a greeting like that. Superman was made of sterner stuff. "I take it you've had words with the Secret Service," he guessed.

"They've had words with me," she snapped.

For a minute or two, the only sound was the angry slamming of file cabinet drawers. Superman had picked up the knack of not speaking just to fill awkward silences. It came in mighty handy when he wanted someone to tell him something.

"It doesn't make any sense!" Maggie finally exploded. "These are Secret Service Agents! I was looking forward to working with them! Seeing how they do things, you know?" Lt. Sawyer looked at Superman for understanding, and he nodded.

He knew exactly what she meant; he'd also been curious and excited about meeting the President's security teams. Clark felt kind of warm inside, too, that Sawyer would talk to him like this, like a person, like maybe even a friend.

"And it's not that I don't understand!" Maggie continued. "These are not 'innovative new safety precautions'!!! This is just plain nuts! Do they want someone to get him?"

Clark blinked. Now, there was an idea. Maggie stopped ranting around the office and looked thoughtful. "You don't suppose that's it, do you?" she ventured. "Like a palace coup?"

Superman crossed his arms and looked big. "That's not the American Way." Then he sighed. "It does make a certain amount of sense, though. Darn. Why'd they have to...."

He cut himself off before he could finish the unworthy thought, but Maggie completed the sentence for him anyway. "...Pull this crap in our town?"

He was so happy at the use of that 'our', because Maggie Sawyer had always been one of the cops who hated having Superman around. He smiled at her, and it was the Clark Kent smile. Whoops. Oh, well. She'd never met Clark Kent but the once, and that was years ago -- he didn't recall having smiled much that day anyhow.

Maggie smiled back at him, ruefully, and that was neat, too. "Damned if I'm gonna let 'em get away with that here. How 'bout you?"

"I wholeheartedly agree," Superman said.

"That's that, then. Even the U.S. Secret Service can't take out a man once Metropolis PD and Superman have sworn to protect him. Why don't you go make yourself useful; I've got work to do." The words weren't that friendly, but she waved to him as he flew away.

Clark Kent leaned over the archaic coin-operated pay-phone, counting rings. "C'mon, c'mon." No one was answering at home. Everybody must be busy outside in the fields. He glanced up and through a bunch of buildings to where the G-men (T-men?) were still fiddling around.

"Dang!" He hung up and tried another number he knew by heart.

"Lex Luthor."

"Lex! It's me, Clark. Do you think -- can you get a message to Buffy?"

"I can certainly try. She's not at the farm?"

"No one's answering. Tell her that Lt. Sawyer of Metro PD agrees with me about those Secret Service guys. It's like they're setting up for the President to be vulnerable to attack on purpose."

"Like a palace coup?"

"That's just what Maggie said! Lt. Sawyer, I mean."

"Hmm." Lex sounded like he was mulling over the fact that Clark had used the lieutenant's first name. Clark's face got hot, and he thought he might be in for a severe teasing, or even some real trouble, if Lex told Dawn and Dawn got mad. But what Lex said instead was "You hero-types really should carry cell phones."

Dawn tried again to twist her hair up into a bun. How the heck did Buffy and Anya and Mom make it look so easy? Must be a blonde thing. Exasperated, she stabbed a pencil through it, and it stayed up! Huzzah! Encouraged by this extremely minor success, she returned to the smoking ruins of her interdimensional transporter.

Several hours passed.

"Crap crap crappity crap," Dawn fumed.

"Very eloquent." Lex was lounging nattily in her lab doorway. She didn't know how long he'd been there.

"Just the brilliant young billionaire I was looking for!" she greeted him. "Hold that, wouldja?"

Lex obligingly held the awkward wire-harness in place while Dawn struggled with the connector. "Think you can get it working again?"

"Of course! Well, kinda. The detector didn't do anything too exciting when I put the power to it again, which my advisor said he appreciates. I think I fritzed some components. But if this doesn't -- stand back, huh?"

Lex stood back. Dawn flipped the power strip switch to ON. No flames, sparks, or smoke resulted.

"Hah!"

"Success?"

"Well, lack of catastrophic failure, anyway. It means I just need to get some fresh capacitors, maybe a new heat sink --"

She was interrupted by a loud POP! All the room's lights went out.

"Darn."

"Circuit breakers?"

"I hope."

There ensued a short interval during which the power strip was shut off again, and the circuit breakers were located and re-set. Lighting restored, Dawn stared at her apparatus in annoyance.

"I'm sorry for your loss," Lex said.

"Yeah, well, whatcha gonna do. The field of mad science is fraught with mishap."

Dawn heard the suppressed laughter in Lex's "That's very true," but she chose not to comment on it.

"I still have to get this working by Saturday -- end of the month milestone."

"Not to mention needing it in case of possible Death Stars."

Dawn rolled her eyes and blew her hair off of her forehead. "I wasn't going to mention that."

Farmwork? Kinda hard, kinda not. It sure wasn't much like Slaying.

Buffy thought she could have made it to the creamery and back even without Cara's help. Eventually. After all, it was a straight shot to Grandville, and there were road signs and everything. It was a good thing that Martha and Jonathan didn't really need any help hooking up and unhooking the milking thingies to the cows, 'cause Buffy had found that to be both complicated and gross, just from looking around at them doing the work. She wished she could be more help, but Clark's folks seemed to have everything under control, so she guessed it was fine.

One thing she actually had some experience at, even though it was fictional experience made up by monks, was baby-sitting. Cara was a helpful little kid, but she was still a little kid, and it was easy to see that keeping her out of Martha's hair while she ran the home-baking business and did the bookkeeping for the farm was a worthwhile service for real.

Xander's ideal of Buffy's Kansas Vacation might be kind of goofy, but she sure was getting caught up on her sleep. Buffy's contribution to the Lex-Dawn-Clark teleconference thing the night before had mainly been big silly-sounding yawns, and she'd been fast asleep at an hour when she'd typically just be locating the evening's first prey, back home. It was kind of cool.

She'd ended up napping when Cara did again, too, although that wasn't quite as much fun when it didn't involve waking up right next to Lex. She wished she hadn't been too out-of-it to enjoy that, Monday afternoon.

There was plenty of food; Mrs. Kent seemed to think Buffy needed feeding up. Mr. Kent hadn't balked at her helping him with the hay or the tractor. Plus, there was pie.

Everything seemed to be working out fine.

Of course, that usually meant trouble.

"You sure you know the route for these deliveries?" Jonathan asked, as he and Buffy hauled the last box of fresh organic vegetables into the truck bed. "I could come along; there are more stops today than there were yesterday when Clark showed you around."

"I've got the map, and I have Cara."

"Yay!" Cara interjected.

"Besides, you need to catch the cows and milk them again, don't you? I totally can't be much help with that. Honestly. I think we'll be fine. Right, Cara?" Buffy smiled at the little girl, who was wiping her hands on her cute little overalls, in imitation of her daddy.

"Right!"

"It must be around here somewhere."

"You've been saying that for the last hour," Mulder sniped. He spat another sunflower seed shell out the window.

"Hmm. More like thirty-forty minutes," Stonetree argued, eyes on the road.

"It's pitch-black out here. It's the middle of nowhere. The only way we'll find these caves is if we crash into them."

Stonetree could've pointed out that the sun was barely down, but he stayed silent instead. He was starting to wonder whether the end of the human race was really such a bad thing.

Suddenly he heard something. Fox's head snapped around, too. "You hear that?"

"Screaming. Over thataway."

Stonetree spun the wheel and accelerated. "Let's go."

They weren't exactly lost. Cara said she knew which direction the farm was in, and how far away it was, and Buffy believed her. The problem was there was no road going that way, hadn't been for an hour or more, and now it was definitely getting dark.

They were approximately lost.

Buffy kept driving, hoping for a road that would head the direction Cara kept pointing.

"Buffy! It's that way!"

"I know!" Buffy took a deep breath. Do Not Snap at the Toddler. "We need to find a road that way, sweetie."

"Oh." Cara quit bouncing, but she kept pointing. Then she started bouncing again. "Are we gonna miss supper?"

"I'm sure your mom will save us something. Have you ever been on this street before?"

Cara shrugged. "Maybe."

They weren't surrounded by corn any more. Buffy had no idea if they were even still in Kansas. Weren't all these Eastern states awfully small? The road entered a bunch of trees -- woodlot or forest or something -- old and dark and spooky and absolutely deserted.

Buffy started to get a bad feeling about this place, which was only made stronger when the truck's headlights revealed a fallen tree blocking the road. Huh. She stopped the truck and looked at Cara.

The little girl wasn't pointing anymore. She was all huddled together in her booster seat and looked cold.

"You okay?"

"Nuh uh." Cara shook her head.

There had been lightning bugs visible in the bushes and fields beside the road ever since it got dark, but now Buffy noticed there were a lot of them surrounding the fallen tree trunk.

They seemed bigger and greener than the ones at the Kents' place.

"Let's turn around," Buffy decided.

She carefully maneuvered the big truck around. The swarm of weird glowy bugs surged ominously around outside her windshield, making it a little hard to see. Almost immediately, Buffy got her rear wheels into the ditch. They spun uselessly.

"Bugger it!" she swore. Embarrassed, she looked at Cara. The little girl hadn't noticed Buffy's peculiar choice of bad language. She had her knees drawn up, and her arms wrapped around them, and she was starting to whimper.

"Ohhh. Don't worry. I'll just pull the truck out of the ditch, maybe turn it around by hand; we'll go back the way we came and find our way home like that." Buffy turned off the ignition and put the truck in Neutral. She might be a sucky driver, but she did have a fair amount of experience with pushing vehicles.

The second she opened her door, a bunch of the fireflies came flying in. She dratted and swatted at them, not too concerned ('They're just bugs' still reassuring her, even though these particular bugs seemed sort of extra odd) but then Cara started to scream.

The green flashing bugs converged on the terrified child. They seemed to become brighter and greener as they did. Cara screamed and screamed. Buffy instantly slammed the door shut to keep out the rest of the swarm, and started killing insects.

Cara's scream became thin and hopeless, and her flailing arms weak and ineffective. Her skin had gone all greenish and corrugated-looking.

The bugs were no match for the Slayer's lightning-quick hands. Even dead, though, they seemed to hurt the little girl. Buffy cleaned the bug goo off Cara's arms and hands -- fortunately, none had gotten squished on her face -- wiped her own hands clean, balled up the flannel shirt of Clark's she'd been using as a cleaning rag and threw into the far corner of the truck cab. Then she freed the sobbing toddler from her booster seat and gathered her into her lap.

Just bugs my ass, she thought.

There were still about a million glowing insects surging around outside the truck. No way she was opening the door again. Cara still looked sick and shaky, and Buffy couldn't get her to stop crying, but at least her skin looked like skin again.

Stupid demonic bugs.

"Worst case scenario --"

"Always a good place to start."

"There are big space monsters, or something, that have bamfed into orbit --"

"Not orbit."

"Huh?"

"Someone would have noticed something suddenly appearing in orbit. I like your original Oort Cloud idea."

"Like?" Dawn's eyebrows shot up.

Lex shook his head ruefully and gave her a tiny, tight little smile. "Not really."

"Check. How long does it take to get from the Oort Cloud to here, I wonder?"

"Depends on the speed, of course. Hand me that soldering iron, please?"

"I really appreciate your help with this."

"Keeps my mind off... things. Like why the Kents and your sister don't answer the phone. It might prove extremely helpful, as well, vital even, if our worst suspicions prove correct."

"We need some sort of nearer, less-depending-on-catching-them-at-just-the-right-moment detection thing. That is also not broken."

"There are telescopes, both land and space-based, which might very well detect any possible ships. Not just anyone has access, however."

The two worked in silence for a few moments.

"You know, everybody in the Astronomy Department just loves Clark."

"I bet. Is it time to try phoning again?"

"It's only been five minutes. Don't people in Smallville, like, go outside and stuff?"

"I could've driven there by now."

"Lex. She's the Slayer. It's not like you being there would help. Sorry. Tactless. But you know what I mean."

Lex sighed and tested another circuit.

The screaming had stopped some time ago, but Joe kept driving.

After longer than Mulder thought reasonable, they came upon a battered pickup truck stopped in the road, its way blocked by a fallen tree.

"Stay here," Stonetree cautioned. Of course, Mulder ignored him.

The two ex-cops got out of Knight's left-behind Cadillac. They cautiously approached the stalled truck. Mulder swatted at some local insects in irritation.

The truck was stuck halfway in the ditch. Apparently the driver had failed to turn it around. There was a young blonde woman cradling a little kid in the driver's seat.

"Get out, and we'll help you with your truck!" Stonetree shouted.

The driver shook her head, and the kid looked at them with big scared eyes.

"She's allergic to the bugs!" the little blonde yelled, barely audible through the glass. "Can't you kill them out there?"

"Hold on!" Mulder yelled back. He made his way back around to the Cadillac's spacious trunk and rummaged through his sparse belongings. Ever since that whole ugly cockroach incident, he'd made it a point to travel with... Ah ha!

"Whattaya got?" Stonetree rumbled over his shoulder.

"Bug spray," Mulder said, raising the canister triumphantly.

The can of RAID made short work of the strangely aggressive lightning bugs, and the woman gingerly opened the truck door and got out. "Thanks," she said warily, cradling the toddler against her hip. "Who are you guys, anyway, and what are you doing here?"

"Could ask you the same thing..." Mulder began, but Stonetree cut him off.

"We're looking for the Kawatche Caves," he rumbled. "You know where they are?"

Wordlessly, still sniffling, the little girl pointed.

Buffy wished that Cara hadn't just answered these two weird old guys' question right away. Okay, yes, they had killed those stupid bugs for them, and she could tell they at least weren't vampires, but it still might have been nice to have a minute's thought before getting involved. On the basis of the fat guy's peculiar little hat alone, they definitely counted as strangers-not-to-talk-to-after-dark.

She tried to salvage the situation. "Well, guys, thanks for the pesticide and all. I gotta get this little one home."

The big-and-tall guy wasn't looking at her. He addressed Cara instead. "Can you show us the way, child? It's very important."

"What's so important that two grown men need a little girl to help them?" Buffy asked indignantly.

The younger guy looked a little embarrassed. "It's the end of the world."

Bollocks. Buffy shifted Cara on her hip and rolled her eyes. "We're in," she said, resigned.

When Clark touched down in the barnyard, Mom was clearly beside herself with worry. She'd finally returned to the house in case Buffy and Cara, who were hours overdue, should find their way home somehow. Jonathan was still out searching for them.

"I hope nothing's happened to them," she fretted, putting another pan of muffins in. "That old truck is so temperamental...."

"Don't worry." Clark used the Superman voice when he was wearing the Superman suit, even when he was talking to his own mother. It was good practice. "I'll find them."

Mom was the one person who never treated him any different when he was wearing that persona. She smiled up at him, and looked a lot less worried. "Thank you, sweetie."

Clark was just about to spring into the air off the back porch, when he noticed somebody approaching the front door. He slipped inconspicuously into the kitchen instead, and Mom went to answer the knock. He x-rayed through the door. Who would be visiting at this hour?

It was a deliveryman.

When Mom came back into the kitchen, she was laughing a little. "Lex sent you and Buffy cell phones."

Okay, the head-duck, blush, and grin were pure Clark Kent, despite the suit. As long as he was breaking character already, he gave Mom a little hug and a peck on the forehead. "I'll give hers to her when I find them," he promised, and took to the skies.

"Call home, too!" Mom's instruction followed him.

Clark could just about fly and dial a cell phone at the same time. Good thing he didn't have any gum.

"Lex Luthor."

"Hey, Lex. Thanks for the cell phone."

"Clark! Good. We need to get you to talk to the Astronomy --"

Clark didn't let Lex finish. "Buffy and Cara didn't come back yet from deliveries. Mom thinks the truck probably broke down, and Dad's out looking for them. So am I, now. I'll call you back later."

Dawn's voice came from the background. "Let me talk to him... Clark? Good luck."

Clark smiled. "Thanks. See you guys." He might have heard Lex protesting as Dawn hung up the phone, but he was too busy searching for his baby sister to worry about that right now.

The caves were spectacular. In another time, another life, Mulder could have spent hours analyzing their pictographs.

The young woman, Buffy Summers (that name was almost familiar -- maybe she was mentioned somewhere in one of his long-lost X-Files?) had insisted that Mulder and Stonetree help her pull her truck out of the ditch and then follow them in the Caddy. "It's bad enough we're going with you at all. We're certainly not getting into your car!" she'd scolded, with particular emphasis for the kid, Carrie something, who was apparently not the little blonde's daughter.

Fox couldn't believe they were seeking help from a babysitter, but Joe seemed completely unfazed. He couldn't deny, in his heart, that this scheme to save the world had made a lot better progress since the old Canadian had been in charge of it, so he kept just drifting along in the big guy's wake.

Stonetree studied the symbols on the wall as if he had some idea of what they meant. He took his tiny, ridiculous hat off and scratched his head in thought.

Oddly enough, both of the girls they'd rescued seemed able to make some sense of the mystical writings as well. Carrie pulled the babysitter here and there, showing her various pictures and chattering explanations that her big brother had apparently told her about. Buffy didn't look nearly as enthusiastic about any of it. Stonetree was squinting and sticking his tongue out a little as he concentrated on deciphering the glyphs.

"There you are!" boomed a sudden voice.

"Superman!" Buffy exclaimed.

Sure enough, a tall guy in tights and a cape had entered the cave. It wasn't just a Daily Planet publicity thing after all, then.

Carrie had started running to the stranger already, but she halted and looked questioningly back at Buffy's shout. After just a moment's pause, she resumed running to the costumed vigilante. "Superman!" she giggled and jumped at his knees.

"Cara Kent," Superman chided. "Your mama has been very worried about you."

The little girl launched into a garbled narrative involving getting lost, mean bad bugs, and Buffy drove us into the ditch!

Mulder noticed Joe beaming, as he abandoned the cave-writings and approached Superman with his hat in his hand.

"Naman," Stonetree greeted reverently.

Clark was sometimes very glad that he wasn't just Clark Kent, Boy Alien, any more. Superman didn't have to blush or stammer or come up with a bunch of lame protests when the old Indian with the hat greeted him as Naman. (Who was this guy, anyway? Clark was pretty sure he knew all the Kawatches.) Superman could just stand there, cool as a cucumber, arms folded and feet planted heroically apart, while Clark decided whether or not he should deny being Naman, too.

"Call me Superman," Clark corrected him kindly.

"Of course, Naman," the man rumbled, smiling.

Clark refrained from sighing in exasperation. "I'm acquainted with most of the members of the Kawatche Tribe. You're not from around here, are you, Mr. --?"

"Of course. Where are my manners? I'm Joe Stonetree. This is Fox Mulder. We need your help."

"I'm listening," Superman said calmly. Clark ignored Cara giggling at him. Buffy had retrieved her charge, and kept one hand on the little girl's shoulder, even though most of her attention was fixed on Stonetree and Mulder, and the eeriness of the surrounding caves.

Mulder spoke for the first time. "Are you really an alien?"

Superman smiled and nodded.

"You're not like.... Maybe you already know this, but let me begin at the beginning. Fifty years ago or so, an alien ship visited Earth. The aliens made a deal with a cabal of power brokers, whereby the human collaborators would betray the rest of the planet to the invaders in return for their own safety, and that of their families. We've, I've, found evidence of... horrors...." Mulder stopped and closed his eyes for a minute.

Stonetree patted him roughly on the shoulder and took up the tale. "This group of aliens, not your own people, have a timetable. Their main force is coming very soon, possibly within days." He snorted, sounding almost amused. "Human technology can't possibly stop them, couldn't even if the governments of the Earth weren't thoroughly infiltrated with their servants.

A phone rang.

Dang.

Clark reached under his cape and brought out a ringing cell phone. He looked meaningfully at Buffy.

"Miss Summers," he said, "Mrs. Kent asked me to bring you this. If you hadn't left without it, she wouldn't have had to be so worried about Cara."

"Oh. Yeah. Thanks. Sometimes I'm such an airhead," Buffy said fakely. She took the ringing cell phone that Lex had sent special-delivery to Clark's mom.

"Hello? Oh, hi, Lex." Clark noticed that Buffy kept a sharp watch on the two strangers the whole time she was talking.

The big old guy with the funny hat was poking the younger guy meaningfully, and mouthing the word 'Segeeth.' Clark didn't sigh resignedly again. Mulder did, though.

"Yeah, he did. Um. Well, I got lost, with Cara, heading back from deliveries, and we met these couple of guys -- No! They actually kinda saved us from some sort of weird -- yeah, they did glow green! Fine, smart guy. Anyhow, they say it's the end of the world, again, and they want help from Naman and Segeeth. You do? Huh." Buffy held out the phone to Superman. "He wants to talk to you."

"Superman here."

Lex snickered at him! Punk. "I see Buffy's cavalier attitude towards her secret identity hasn't rubbed off on you too much. There are actually people there in the caves, looking for Naman and Segeeth, to prevent an apocalypse?"

"Yes, that's correct."

"AND?"

"As I said, yes."

"What did you tell them?"

"Nothing, yet."

"Who are they, exactly?"

"I am endeavoring to ascertain."

"They don't know about Buffy?"

"I believe that to be the case."

"This probably has something to do with what Dawn's detector picked up. We were hoping you could talk the Astronomy Department into letting us use their big telescope, in an attempt to confirm whether our theory about invading space craft is correct."

"Alien invaders. Yes. I may know a more efficient mechanism. Your plan, however, would be an excellent backup. Would you like to speak with Ms. Summers again?"

"What's gotten into you?"

Superman handed the phone back to Buffy.

"Mr. Stonetree, I rely on you to get Miss Kent and Miss Summers back to the Kent Organic Farm. I'm heading up topside to take a look."

Superman took off.

Up topside to take a look? What, was he in Dawn Patrol now? Clark shook his head, bemused at the way the cheesy dialogue just rolled off of Superman's tongue.

He didn't know exactly what he was looking for, but he hoped a fleet of alien invaders would be sort of obvious, once he got up above the atmosphere. He'd been experimenting with the vacuum of space ever since he and Dawn had taken that trip to California, but he still wasn't too sure what his limits were.

Actually, he hoped there would obviously NOT BE a fleet of alien invaders.

Up past the air, everything was eerily quiet. There was plenty of sunlight, though, even though it had been night when he took off, and somehow the intense sunlight almost took the place of oxygen for him, when he was up here and the air was all way down there. He did a bunch of slow loops, his line-of-sight going around and around like the outermost strand on a ball of yarn. He let his freak-vision and his freak-memory have free reign, and all too soon he found them.

Crap.

Everything was coming together. Joe felt a calm descending upon him. There was a way through this situation; he knew it deep in his bones. If they all worked this right, everything would be fine.

First things first, step by step -- that was how to do it now. "Miss Summers, Miss Kent. Shall we return to the Kent Farm?"

"I guess. Lex, we're all heading back to the Kents'. Talk to you later."

"That's it?" Mulder asked. "We've been searching for these damn caves for days, and that's it? We're just going away again?"

"We found what we came for," Joe reassured him. "Naman needs us to be where he can find us. Segeeth, too. Let's get these ladies back home."

"We know the actual way home from here?" Buffy seemed to be asking the child. Cara nodded, and Buffy addressed Joe and Fox. "You guys just come with us. Looks like Kent Organic Farm is gonna be Command and Control for this one."

Stonetree followed Buffy and Cara, and Mulder followed Stonetree.

By the time their little procession pulled into the yard at the Kent Farm, Mulder's continual questions and building panic had only worn away a little at Joe's steady calm. It wasn't like this was the first time he'd met up with something incredible, and that had worked out pretty well. Well, not as badly as it could have, anyway. The thing to do was stay calm and alert, and handle things as they came up. He tried telling Fox that, but the kid was a lot more high-strung when he wasn't drunk off his ass or dragging along in a blue funk.

It was probably just as well. Maybe high-strung could work in their advantage.

Joe parked the Caddy at the side of the dirt lane behind the battered farm truck. A buxom red-haired woman came hurrying out to the vehicles as they drove up. From the way she snatched the little girl out of the truck, she must be Cara's mother. Buffy jumped down out of the cab and started explaining. Joe and Fox got out of the car and joined the group. The farmwife's expression became suspicious.

"Buffy? Won't you introduce your friends?" The woman talked right over the little girl's chatter about mutant lightning bugs. She must be Cara's mother.

"Not exactly friends," Buffy huffed under her breath. "Mrs. Kent, this is Joe Stonetree and Fox Mulder. They were looking for the Cow-Hickey Caves, and they rescued us from some of those bugs that Cara is allergic to, after -- never mind. Short form -- Norman, Shuggie, Superman, end of the world. Can I use your phone?"

"End of the world?" Her eyes went wide, and she clutched the toddler to her ample chest. Joe wondered briefly whether Mrs. Kent might be a divorcee or a widow, and was shocked at himself. It was a long time since he'd thought of a woman like that.

"Don't worry," the babysitter reassured her. "We're totally on it. Phone?"

"Didn't C -- um, Superman, bring you that, your cell phone?"

"Oh! Yes, totally. Thanks." Buffy took the little electronic device out of her pocket and flipped it open. "Dingbat," she muttered under her breath. Squinting a little, she used the light from the Caddy's headlights to pick out a phone number on the tiny keypad. Holding it up to her ear, she looked at the Mulder and Stonetree and flapped her free hand at them. "Talk among yourselves!" She turned her back to the group and said, "Hey! Willow. It's me. Whattaya got on End of World, Extraterrestrials, Caused by?"

A small domestic car drove up, and a man got out. "Martha! You found them!" He came up to Mrs. Kent and hugged her and the child. Not a widow, then. Joe knew better than to be disappointed.

"They came back on their own. Mr. Stonetree and Mr. Mulder here helped them out of a sticky situation." Mrs. Kent backed away out of the conversation, petting her child and going to stand watchfully on the porch. Joe heard the little girl start clamoring for her missed dinner.

The farmer heartily shook Joe's hand. "Jonathan Kent. Thanks for helping the girls out, Mr. Stonetree is it?"

Joe liked Mr. Kent even more when he shook Mulder's hand and apparently left it stinging. "Glad to do it. They helped us out, too. We were having a hell of a time finding the Kawatche Caves, and your daughter was able to direct us."

"Kawatche Caves?" Kent asked, suddenly sounding suspicious as well. "What did you want there?"

"We were looking for Naman and Segeeth," Stonetree started to explain.

"We're trying to prevent the end of the world," Mulder put in, sounding tired again.

Instead of treating them as if they were crazy, Jonathan Kent gave both old ex-cops a long, appraising look. Finally, he said, "You all better come on into the house, then."

Superman landed on the roof of Pete Ross's apartment building in Metropolis, but moments later it was Clark Kent who super-sped through the hot, muggy, neon-lit downtown and ended up at the leafy but still stifling Met. U. Campus. He zipped unerringly to Applied Physics, and slowed to a fast Earth-normal speed only after he got the after-hours lock-code wrong twice.

Blessing his freak memory (he'd only seen Dawn tap in that combination once, during the early stalking phase of their relationship, which she didn't actually know about yet) and cursing his fast, clumsy fingers, Clark thundered down the worn tile steps, calling "Dawn! Lex!"

Dawn's shiny brunette head poked out of the door of Lab Seven. "What's wrong?" she asked.

He took her hand and let her pull him into the room. Lex was there, too, as Clark had known he would be. There was a smear of graphite on his temple. Sometimes it was just freaky how alike he and Cara looked.

"Real alien invasion fleet?" Lex asked, as soon as he saw Clark's face.

Clark nodded miserably. "Five ships." He looked all the way through the floor and the ground and the planet and the atmosphere on the other side, and gestured. Now that he knew exactly where to look, they were depressingly obvious. "Right there." Superman didn't let a little thing like being massively outnumbered and outclassed bother him (possibly because it had never happened before) but Clark felt, frankly, doomed. He sat down on the linoleum floor. "What are we going to do?"

"Okay, great, Will. You'll get in touch with Riley and Mrs. Riley and the surviving Government Monster Squadders, and you'll call Angel in L.A. and Giles and those Coven Guys in England, and hey! I've got another call coming in! This is the coolest phone ever. Catch you later! Hello?"

"Buffy, it's me."

"Hi, Lex." Buffy's heart was doing that little singy thing it did when she had a new beau, and she tried to squelch it, because that never turned out well, and besides they had a big alien invasion counter-plan to do. She was about fifty percent successful.

"Superman is here with me." Buffy could hear the air-quotes, but that was only because she knew what was up with that.

"Was he able to find the bad guys?"

Clark was audible in the background. He sounded upset. "Yes. There are five ships."

"Five?" Okay, time for the we're-all-going-to-die plummet. It was weird feeling that and the new-boyfriend feeling all at once. Never happened that way before. "Five seems like a lot. How long do we have?"

"Four or five days, he thinks." Clark's voice in the background again, then "Closer to four. He can see them from here, now."

Mmm. Freaky. Four days was good, though. The certainty of impending world-endage eased off a notch. "Well, I've sent a heads-up around to my troops, but we prolly need to know a where as well as a when. How. Who."

Clark said something in the background. "Huh?" Lex asked, and Buffy echoed him. "Cl - Superman thinks... Here. You talk to her."

Buffy heard Clark clear his throat, and then he spoke, in the same self-consciously heroic voice he'd used earlier when in costume. "The President of the United States will be in Metropolis for Independence Day. It's never happened before. Additionally, I took your advice about speaking with the Metropolitan Police. Lieutenant Sawyer agrees that the behavior of the President's security team is extremely suspicious."

"Oh, yeah! That makes a lot of sense. Especially with what those two old cave guys said, about international government conspiracies and stuff. 'Cause if I was a government conspiracist, I'd make sure the big alien invasion went down way the hell away from my nice marble buildings and statues. Washington Monument, White House, you know."

"You're right. Independence Day, then."

"Like the movie!" Buffy laughed, even though she knew that it would probably make Clark feel upset. End of the world -- she felt almost comfy, in her own proper place. "Okay, so that's at least one ship headed for Kansas. Do you suppose they're all coming here, or are they setting up around the globe?"

"I don't know. I suppose I can sneak around up there and keep an eye on them."

"That won't give us that much warning, and I think it'd be a better use of your skills if you take out as many of them as you can as high up as possible. Nope. Plenty of witches in England, with locating spells and prognostication and stuff. I'll call Willow back."

"Wait. Take out? Buffy!" Huh. He was using his regular dorky college boy voice again.

"Uh. Alien Invasion!"

"Just because they're aliens doesn't necessarily mean they're bad!"

Buffy's jaw literally dropped. "Excuse me?"

"I'm serious, Buffy."

"So am I, you know. World-endage, kinda my speciality."

"How do we even know that they're really an invasion?"

Dawn's voice was loud enough to be made out clearly, even on the other end of the phone connection. "Well, the fact that they're, you know, invading would tend to bear that theory out!"

Clark sounded mulish. Buffy thought he was mostly talking to Dawn. "Just because they're aliens coming to this planet doesn't mean they're bad."

"Mulder and Stonetree --," Buffy started to put in.

"We don't know them! We don't know they're telling the truth!"

"We at least know they're human!" That provoked a startled gasp and a stunned silence from the boy on the other end of the line, and Buffy realized what a mean thing she'd just said. "Oh, God. Clark, I'm sorry. I didn't mean...." And damned if she hadn't just called Clark by his right name. Well, she never had been any good at Secret Identities. Hopefully the phones weren't tapped or anything.

Lex's voice came from the phone. Clark must have dropped it, or given it to him. "He could have a point. I'm certainly not one to give any unwarranted benefit of the doubt, but it would be better if we could be sure. How much do you know about these two characters, exactly?"

"I guess we could do some research, but if we only have a few days -- fine. Fox Mulder, Joe Stonetree. I'll ask Willow to check on them, along with all the other --"

"No, it sounds as if your friend will have enough to do as it is. Checking backgrounds is right up Chloe Sullivan's alley. I'll call her. I wish there were a way to communicate with the ships themselves. You don't pick a fight with someone you can't talk to."

Buffy'd only known Lex for two months, but she already knew he was a Giles-class quotations guy. "Sun Tzu's Art of War?" she guessed.

Lex's little huff of a chuckle was very cute. "C. J. Cherryh, the Chanur saga. I'll talk to Chloe."

"And tell Clark I'm sorry about that human crack?"

"He knows."

Clark had left the lab as abruptly as he'd entered, muttering something about patrol and then vanishing before Lex had even gotten off the phone. Lex felt bad for him, but he couldn't restrain the thrill he felt at watching Clark blur away like that, not worrying about hiding his nature.

Dawn looked worried, too. "He'll feel better after stopping some crime," she said aloud, obviously trying to convince herself more than him.

"I think I'll declare myself a holiday until the Fourth of July. It's only a couple of days. Besides, there's no point in worrying about the stock price if the world comes to an end," Lex mused. "Between the two of us, you think we can figure out a way to prove to Clark that it's okay to kill those guys?"

"I think we have to. I'm not sure Buffy can take out five spaceships full of alien invaders alone."

"Especially if they land at five different spots on the planet's surface. If I had five spacecraft and were invading a world, I'd...." Lex broke off a moment and thought. "If I had five ships, I'd definitely need some sort of communication between them."

"Radio, laser, telepathy, magic, something we've never heard of..."

"Occam's Razor. Radio's easiest."

"Who do I know with a powerful frequency scanner?" Dawn asked, looking at Lex with raised eyebrows.

End of the world. "All of LexCorp's and LuthorCorp's assets are in play. I'll see what I can find." Lex pulled out his cell. Even in the middle of the night, he had his minions. It was nice to be the boss. "Nolan? I'll need you to deliver the following supplies to Lab Seven, Metropolis University." He looked up at Dawn. "You'll let my man in?"

"Maybe we should move my stuff to one of your labs? It'd be nice to have a more robust power supply."

Lex nodded. "Maybe we should move your stuff out of Metropolis altogether, if that's where the big fight's going to be." Addressing the phone again, he said, "Nolan, change of plans. Send a team and a van to Met. U. We'll meet you at the door."

"And don't forget to ask Chloe about Mulder and Stonetree. I could look them up myself, but I think I'll be busy with moving the hardware. Clark could be right, you know, about them just being nuts or bad guys themselves. We do have to check somehow."

"I'll call Chloe right now." Lex flipped the tiny phone open again. He'd programmed in the number for Chloe's cell after Mrs. Kent had made him write it down -- had that only been last week? And now the Earth was probably being invaded by some sort of alien strike-force. The world is stranger than we can imagine.

"Hello?" It didn't sound like he'd just woken her up. Thank heaven for college girls.

"Chloe, this is Lex Luthor."

"Hey, Lex. What's up? I read about your dad. Was it really vampires?"

"It was. I'll be glad to tell you the whole story later, off the record. Right now, there's a new problem, though, and I need your skill with research."

"Color me intrigued."

Lex smiled. He didn't want to go into the whole alien invasion story over the phone, so he just said, "Could you copy down the following two names? Joe or Joseph Stonetree, Fox Mulder." He spelled them for her, and waited while she spelled them back. "We need to know all about them, really."

"I have some stuff I need to do for the paper, but I can probably get back to you tomorrow or the next day."

"I'm afraid that won't be good enough --"

"Lex," Chloe interrupted, "I have cut you a lot of slack and taken your side a lot over the years, but when you act like you have priority over my life just because you're rich, it's really just too --"

Lex interrupted her in turn. "It's a matter of life and death, Chloe. I wouldn't, well I'd try not to -- it's about the end of the world. Superman can give you the whole story, in a few days, if we all live that long."

Chloe stunned was a specific sort of a silence, one that he recognized from their shared insane youth in Smallville. "Okay," she finally said. "I'll get right on this and call you back as soon as I can." She hung up.

Dawn was sitting and scribbling at the lab's battered metal desk. She looked up at Lex and gestured to her paper. "Suppose it is radio. These guys are, what, two-thirds of the way to the Oort Cloud from here? The radio transmission delay is going to be huge, and I doubt they'll be patient and enthusiastic about a conversation with us anyway."

"We'll just have to try it."

"Or, we could try this."

It seemed a little anti-climactic, to end up in this perfectly ordinary yellow farmhouse sharing pie and coffee with these perfectly ordinary-seeming people. The caves had been much more like the sort of thing he was used to.

On the other hand, he and all his allies had been struggling through ancient sites of power for many years. So far, all it had brought them was suffering and death, and the world was no closer to salvation.

Briefly, Mulder longed for the days when the worst he had to worry about was the closure of the X-Files, being thrown out of the FBI and imprisoned, and certain alien invasion and doom in the year 2012. In those days, he'd had friends; he'd had Scully. At least he'd known where she was and that she was mostly safe, and that she was brilliant and working on the problem. Skinner had been with her, bringing to bear as much of the official Bureau resources as he could on their behalf, on the behalf of the world. He'd had hope of success. Even if it had been false hope, it had been something.

Now Skinner was dead, and Scully had finally given up on him and his crusade. Now he knew that the invasion was coming six years earlier than he'd hoped. Now he'd exhausted every lead, burned every bridge, and if it weren't for the bizarre help of this retired Toronto policeman, he almost certainly would have put a bullet in his brain by now, to save the aliens the trouble.

Fox noticed everybody around the table was staring at him. "I'm sorry?" he asked.

Stonetree guffawed a little, softly. Mr. Kent's weathered face crinkled in a smile. "Martha asked you if you wanted any more pie," the farmer asked.

"Um. Yes, please. This is... good pie. Thanks." Mrs. Kent took his plate and returned it with another piece. She refilled his coffee without asking, but she still looked a little suspicious.

The blonde, Buffy, wiped Cara's face and watched him warily. Cara was on the verge of falling asleep; it was pretty late for a little girl, Mulder guessed. He was momentarily lost again in regrets about his son, regrets that he thought he'd given up on a long time ago.

"So, Mr. Mulder, tell us all about this alien invasion of yours." Mulder thought that Jonathan Kent's voice sounded falsely jovial, and he noticed that the farmer had his trusty rifle near at hand, hung on the wall right behind his seat.

Mulder sighed. "When I was a child, my sister was abducted by aliens. Nobody seemed to believe me when I told them what I'd seen. When I became a man, I joined the FBI, to find out the truth. I found out... a lot of things. More than I'd bargained for."

He took out the one weapon he had (his Glock was unloaded and locked in the Caddy's trunk), and showed it to them all.

Martha took one quick, uninterested look and busied herself with getting her sleepy toddler upstairs to bed, but Buffy and Jonathan both looked on in great interest. Stonetree had seen it before, days ago in Toronto. He got up and fetched himself another cup of coffee, muttering, "Wonderful coffee," to no one in particular.

Buffy reached out her hand and stopped in mid-motion. "May I?" she asked.

"Careful," he said, and operated the hidden switch that shot out the sharp narrow blade.

Buffy smiled delightedly and picked it up. She was attractive when she smiled, he thought, maybe a little skinny for his taste.

"Over the course of many years' investigation, I found evidence of a worldwide government conspiracy. They were covering up all evidence of alien incursions on Earth. They were also, simultaneously it seemed, trying to develop covert plans to either thwart or enable the alien invasion and takeover of the planet. There were so many groups, all trying to keep secret from one another, and all willing and able to kill for their own purposes. The truth was out there, I always thought, but I was wrong. The truth was back home. After my father died, I found this with his things. It's a specialized tool for killing alien spies and assassins. The only way to kill them is to stab them in the back of the neck, at the juncture of the skull and the spine. These things are specially designed for the purpose. My father, he knew all along. He traded my sister for something, some goal of some group he was always a part of, since before we were born." Mulder knew he wasn't telling this story in a persuasive way; he'd done a lot better in Canada. No one was going to be convinced by his whining ramblings. Hell, he wouldn't even be convinced.

Apparently, Buffy and Jonathan were, though. They were looking at him with a mixture of pity and horror in their eyes. "I thought the Luthors were bad," Jonathan muttered, shaking his head in disgust.

"He probably thought he had some sort of... reason," Buffy suggested dubiously.

"Are you condoning --," Mr. Kent began, heatedly.

Buffy cut him off. "No! There's always another way." She shook off whatever memory it was that darkened her eyes, and changed the subject. "This weapon is very cool," Buffy said, wielding it in some quick complicated pattern before plunging it towards the table and stopping a hair's breadth away from the worn wooden surface. She laid it back down exactly where it had been. "Nothing else will kill them? Beheading, setting on fire, stake through the heart?"

"Doesn't seem to. Also, if they're wounded but not killed, their blood emits toxic vapors, and it will eat through almost any material, like a powerful acid."

"Darn," she commented. "We'll have to come up with a way to get around that."

Mulder looked at her in surprise. Was she joking?

She smiled at his expression. "I'm the Vampire Slayer."

"Aaah," Stonetree said. Mulder couldn't tell whether he was referring to the Vampire Slayer or the pie.

"But I kill other stuff, too; it's not just vamps!" Buffy insisted. Apparently, his doubts showed on his face. "I've done an alien, even, a Queller Demon. So. Have you ever heard of an organization called The Initiative? The Adam Project? Professor Maggie Walsh? Something called 314?"

It seemed to ring a bell. "There've been a number of Adam Projects, I'm not sure..."

"It doesn't matter, really. Government mad-science guys and commandos, in my town, Sunnydale, splicing together people and demons to make super-soldiers for some reason we never found out. It all went horribly wrong, of course, and they ended up shutting it down. It's just that it seems to fit in with what you were talking about."

"It could easily have been. I actually came to Toronto looking for a vampire cop, Nick Knight, hoping he'd help."

"Vampire cop?" Buffy asked, clearly fascinated. "I know a vamp private eye in L.A., but I never heard of a vampire cop. How could that even...?" She trailed off, clearly thinking hard.

"Nick was a good guy," Stonetree rumbled. He got up and gathered all the dishes and took them to the sink.

"But he was gone by the time I got there. Joe was still around, though, and he brought us here looking for Naman and Segeeth, ancient prophesied defenders of the world." Mulder realized it might be out of place to let the sneer creep into his voice when he said that, considering that they'd apparently actually found them, but he somehow couldn't help it.

"Naman and Segeeth?" Jonathan Kent asked. "Are you sure? I always thought those prophesies said the two of them are destined to be enemies, that Segeeth betrays Naman and they battle forever."

"They balance forever," Stonetree rumbled over the sound of the running water. "They are as close as brothers, and like brothers they betray one another and reconcile, again and again, generation after generation. They are not always the same men, but when the world needs them, there they are. Star-destined." The big man turned back toward the table, wiping his hands on a dishtowel. He'd washed all the dishes and neatly put them away. "They are not always the same men. They are not always the same stories. But they are always there."

Even though it had been more-or-less her plan, Dawn was surprised how quickly and smoothly it all came together. "Too bad we didn't have you around the last few times the world was coming to an end," she complimented Lex. "It would have been a lot more efficient."

He smiled crookedly at her. "What, you would have saved twice as many planets by now?"

Mulder, Stonetree, Buffy, and Jonathan Kent were on the road from Smallville to Metropolis, driving the monstrous Cadillac that had apparently once belonged to a vampire cop. All Dawn's scientific apparatus (and quite a bit of LexCorp's, too) was on the same road, going the other way. Lex thought her experiments were intriguing and important, and they were stashing the gear in his castle in Smallville, to theoretically keep it clear of the big alien battle coming up.

Chloe's preliminary report on Fox Mulder indicated, basically, that he was thrown out of the FBI for running a Wall of Weird, and now she wanted desperately to meet him in person. Stonetree's reputation, on the other hand, was spotlessly normal and respectable for a retired Canadian policeman. Clark had seemed much reassured (and considerably calmer, after thwarting a bank robbery, a car-jacking, and two liquor-store heists) to hear that.

Dawn had been on the computer with Willow for almost an hour, getting the specifics of the binding spell. She sent Clark to England to borrow Giles's magic gourd, while she worked out all the modifications she was going to have to implement. Sineya, the First Slayer, had been cranky enough the first time Buffy's gang had used her spell. She'd probably be even more reluctant to let a boy from a different planet be the focus. Dawn realized she was counting pretty heavily on "Gotta Save the World" as the Slayer Prime Directive, but she figured gambles like that were what world-saveage was all about.

She was sitting on the front porch of the Applied Physics building and finishing up her cards when a big car drove up.

"Over here!" she called, waving.

Buffy hopped out of the back door and came over. "How come vampires always have the coolest cars?" she wondered.

Lex came up the steps from the lab in time to hear her remark. "Hey!" he objected. Then he saw the Cadillac. He blinked at it for a couple of seconds, then shook himself a tiny bit. "American made," he sneered, but Dawn could tell it took an effort.

Buffy smiled at him and took his hand. "Snob," she said fondly. "So. What's the sitch?"

"The airline tickets are all arranged. Your reinforcements should be here within twenty-four hours, on LuthorCorp's dime."

"Not LexCorp's?" Jonathan Kent asked, in a disapproving tone, as he came up to the Applied Physics porch.

Lex smirked and looked cool. "It's Dad's world, too."

Unexpected gruff laughter came from the big man, must be Stonetree, who'd worked his way free of the driver's seat of the Caddy. "Always thinking. I li