2.06, Redux

But many a Pulitzer has sprung from the seeds of wild theories. Just make sure you can back them up, and that'll be the difference between writing trash for Inquisitor, and reporting for the Daily Planet.

After a student dies after rapid aging, Chloe goes looking around for answers; she disagrees with the coroner's reporter which claimed a rapid onset of progeria.  When Clark mentions that the new principal will probably come after the Torch, but Chloe pulls out a full file on the new Principal Reynolds and his qualifications.

The next day, she's scheduled a interview with the new principal; she tells Clark that her source at the M. E.'s office, a goth named Chad who she met after sharing eyeliner, sent her the student's autopsy report.  Chloe points out an abnormality in the students pituitary gland noted on the autopsy and theorizes that the life was sucked right out of the student.  Chloe and Clark are caught off guard by the principal over hearing their discussion and tells her that "many a Pulitzer has sprung from the seeds of wild theories. Just make sure you can back them up, and that'll be the difference between writing trash for Inquisitor, and reporting for the Daily Planet."

Chloe continues working on the progeria story after yet another student was found to have the same problem with his pituitary as the first; she digs and traces similar cases of triple progeria cases back to 1921 by the same girl who sucked the life to stay eternally young.*  Clark once again conveniently runs out on her once her head is turned.

At the end of the episode, Clark confesses that in five years he will be in college studying journalism.   He blames Chloe, but asks Lana not to tell her that; add that he likes "to find the truth behind things."

* This the second metahuman on the show; this time Chloe does know about their existence.