Fic: Aliens 601, For Humans (Part 1) (kind of a b'day fic for jlvsclrk) (1/3, complete)
Title: Aliens 601, For Humans (Part 1)
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: pre-Clex
Rating: PG-13 (mild cursing)
Spoilers: Up through the end of Reckoning in season 5. Goes slightly AU at Lexmas ("when given a nail..."). Things start to snowball here. Spans Vengeance, but references a lot of earlier season 5.
Word count: 20,900+
Summary: Lex may be missing a few prerequisites for this one. He wants Clark to tutor him, but Clark is barely muddling through on his own as it is. Unfortunately, failure is not an option that either of them can live with, and they're worried they're being graded on a curve...
Warnings: Un-beta'd. More Evil Italics Of Doom, emphasis mine. Oh and yeah, there's a lot of thinky!Lex and not so much action. Consider yourself warned.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: Second in the "Learning Curve" series, and certainly not the last. (Are you kidding? We're only just getting started! *g*) "Lexmas, Interrupted" was the first-written and Lex POV; this one continues in the Lex POV tradition. Spans only one episode this time, so it's a bit slower-going than the first fic. I also wasn't as 'ready-steady-go!' from initial conception to writing for this one as the previous, and didn't do quite as much hard-core episode research as before, but I hope you will all still find it enjoyable regardless :)
Happy Birthday jlvsclrk! I remember you wanting more of this -- see, look, I'm making it better! (Sort of. For varying values of 'better'. *eg*)
Next section located here.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex groaned as he blinked open gummy eyes at his ceiling.
He'd managed to make it back to bed, after all. Wonderful.
He rolled over, then slowly levered himself upright, showing care to his aching head. Right, he needed a shower, and hydration. Maybe not in that order.
It tasted like something had died in his mouth.
Dental hygiene first, then, Lex sighed, grimacing.
He shoved himself shakily upright and slowly staggered to the bathroom.
Then he did a quick 180, half-threw himself across his bed, and made a mad scrabble under his pillow.
He snatched up the small packet of photos, clutching them to his chest, and stumbled into the bathroom, slamming the door shut and locking it. He collapsed against it, panting heavily and shivering.
Lex ripped off the paper covering and checked every single photo in the stack to make sure he wasn't missing any of them before he did anything else.
~*~*~*~*~*~
After feeling somewhat human again, having brushed, flossed, drank at least a liter of water straight from the tap (ugh), and showered, Lex stepped out of the bath, wrapped a towel around himself, and leaned back against the wall, glaring at the packet of photos lying unobtrusively on the corner of the sink counter.
Lying like Clark lied, all innocent-looking on the outside, and chock full of world-shattering secrets on the inside.
Bastard.
Where the hell had Griff gotten the photos? From Nixon? By way of Sam Phelan? Because many of the pictures were something like four years old, if going by Clark's hairstyle was any indication, or his relative height compared to his parents in the scenes.
The papers that had accompanied the photos were stored in the library's wall safe. They were damning of the parents, not the adopted child, and were far safer in that sense.
Especially since if Lionel found those it wouldn't be a problem -- they didn't include any information he didn't already know, after all.
Lex had debated back-and-forth with himself about a dozen times last night as to whether to burn the photos or not. It was highly damning material, not safe to keep intact at the risk of someone else obtaining them through carelessness or theft. However, it was also clear evidence against Clark that he could use to force Clark to admit the truth, not ephemeral memories which Clark could feel relatively secure in trying to wave off as he had every single damn time previous. This made them highly valuable, indeed, and possibly irreplaceable -- Clark must have learned some discretion finally, in his parent's senate bid, because if he'd been that open in displaying his strength with the farm crawling with reporters day-in and day-out, someone would have caught him in the act by now and had the photos plastered across every newspaper in the state if he hadn't. Hence Lex's reluctance to part with them permanently: he might not be able to obtain more later, even knowing what he was looking for. That fiasco with the Level 3 escapees was a blazing reminder speaking for extreme caution. ...And yes, he'd upgraded the security since, along with relocating and renaming the project.
Of course, what exactly Clark's truth was was still up for debate. Lex's eyes drooped as he reassessed the conclusion he'd immediately jumped to last night -- that Clark was an alien, of the same type as the ones Lana had run afoul of during the second meteor shower. That Clark was the "Kalel" that they'd been searching for, for whatever purpose they'd not felt the need to disclose to mere humans.
Lex's gut instinct still told him that that was the correct conclusion -- an alien Clark -- even without the half-bottle of hard liquor shoring it up -- but evidence-wise? No, he had no clear evidence of that. Not yet.
If Lex confronted Clark with the photos, he wanted to make sure Clark didn't try to wriggle out of it by claiming that he was "just" a simple meteor freak. As thing stood now, Lex still needed to take a magnifying glass to some of the zoomed-out shots and confirm that Clark's face really had come through clearly on those; some of the zoomed-in shots would need defending simply because the shots were not in all cases completely framed by an indisputable backdrop of land and sky -- some, but not all.
But as damning as those photos were, they only showed strength -- not speed, and not the power to inflict third-degree burns on innocent people.
...Or did they? Speed could be proven if one knew the details of when and where the photos were taken...
And Lex found himself reopening the package and sitting on the tile floor of the bathroom, in the middle of a semi-circle-spread of images once again.
Son of a bitch. Some of those shots that hadn't been helpful before had had timestamps, and the locations were clear, even if Clark was a little hard to make out. He'd dismissed them before, too soon, because Clark hadn't been framed properly in what fantastic or mundane accomplishments he'd been pursuing, even if he had been visible and recognizeable. And, if the timestamps could be believed, he'd moved from the front door of the Kent farmhouse to... Lana's sorority house at Met U in Metropolis? In less than one minute? That was... that...
That was really fast. Clark must have been moving at least... how fast, exactly, was 'a lot'?
Lex estimated the distance between the two locales, frowned, did some mental math to come up with a hard figure, and audibly gasped.
He broke the sound barrier, Lex thought weakly, sagging back against the bathroom wall and staring up at the ceiling, almost wishing for the return of an ignorant haven of disbelief.
What the hell am I up against? he thought morosely, glancing down and looking at each of the pictures in turn, once again.
His palms were actually sweating. Lex rubbed his hands on the towel about his waist and suppressed a shiver.
If he decided to attack me, I wouldn't even be able to see him coming, Lex realized. No-one could. ...Except perhaps that young speedster, he remembered, grimacing to himself as he recalled the young thief, Bart Allen. But there was no way and no chance that Lex could convince the teenager to work with him, now, not after what had happened with the map. Another door closed.
I must be out of my mind, Lex thought weakly, feeling no small amount of despair. Clark was just one being, and capable of this. When Lex had had no proof of current ongoing alien operations, he'd believed that he had a chance to rally, to prepare, to be able to beat them back when they came the next time.
But there was no next time. They'd been here all along.
Game over, they'd already been invaded. They'd been occuppied for years. More than a decade, in fact. At the very least.
I thought I had more time...
He was in trouble. The entire human race was in trouble. They were all headed for extinction at the hands of an alien race with far superior firepower, and only a handful of people knew.
...But Clark didn't exactly seem like the world-conquering type.
Because if he was, why were they all still alive?
Why would Clark spend his time saving people? Stopping meteor mutants? Helping Chloe at The Torch? Spending time escorting Lana around town? ...Pulling drowned billionaires out of cars?
I'm missing a vital piece of information, here, Lex realized grimly. ...Possibly several.
And he'd thought that life would make so much moresense once he knew Clark's secret. The concept seemed laughable now. It's just the tip of the iceberg...
...and, come to think of it, Chloe had magically materialized in the Arctic circle after disappearing from right in front of the doorway to the back room in the caves, hadn't she? ...Trying to follow Kalel? Or in his footsteps?
It was almost poetic, in a crazy horrifyingly-scary way.
And he didn't care what Clark said -- Lex knew it had been him in those caves, standing in that secret cavern, or someone who had looked near-enough like him to be brethren. If Clark wasn't Kalel, then he was a very close blood-relative of the alien. Lex had asked him directly, and the bastard had straight-out lied to his face. (Just like the bridge -- Lex had hit him and Clark had denied it the same way.)
Lex realized he was shaking, and he knew he needed to stop. This was an unproductive line of thought. He unclenched his fists, took a deep breath and mentally took a step back. Don't let this get personal, don't get emotional, or you'll make mistakes, he told himself. Go with your strengths. Business dealings. Negotiations. Treat it like a hostile takeover. Start with what you know. Intelligence reports, movements in the field. Acquisitions, mergers, partnerships, opponents, enemies. Apparent strengths and weaknesses, resources that they can draw upon. Then move on to their actions and possible motives.
There were aliens called Kryptonians around Earth. On Earth. Interested in Earth.
They crash-landed during meteor-shower events that fell on Smallville. There were many resultant deaths, both times.
Two of the aliens were obviously allies, working together. There was a third who they were seeking.
Did they find Kalel? Had a merger or partnership occurred? ...Lex had to leave the thought aside for the moment.
They were extremely strong, unbelievably fast, could shoot fire from their eyes, or near enough as made no difference, and cared not for the sanctity of any human life.
Lex couldn't think of any weaknesses. As far as he knew, they had none. They'd seemed invincible.
They'd crashlanded near the town and brazenly left their spaceship behind at the crater's impact site, and proceeded to slaughter their way through half the police officers in town. They'd treated every human within armsreach with zero respect or concern for their well-being, and inflicted pain and suffering, or worse, on most anyone they approached. They'd said they were looking for "Kalel". Someone who wouldn't bleed. (But Clark did bleed. Lex had seen it. Several times now.) But why had they wanted to find him? And where were they now? They'd mysteriously vanished; they'd been last seen approaching the mansion. Why had they stopped their swath of destruction after arriving here?
...What did they really want?
And what does Clark want? he then thought. Is it the same thing as the other aliens? He'd lived on Earth a long time. ...Maybe he didn't want to share?
Why did the others seek him out? Had he been their contact, Kalel? But they hadn't even known what Kalel looked like. That wasn't very furtive. And what had happened when he caught up with them? Because from what Lex knew of that day, Clark had been running all over town, seemingly trying to look after his friends, at least Lex had thought so at the time...
What did Clark do?
If the invasion was supposed to be a secret, the aliens shouldn't have been running around looking for him with only a name to guide them. If the invasion wasn't supposed to be a secret, then why hadn't this happened sixteen years ago during the first meteor shower? Had there been a change of plans midstream? Or was it something else?
Why did they stop their destructive rampage? Did they stop on their own, or did something or someone force them to?
Why were they looking for Kalel? Why did they want him? Lex thought, and then something struck him as unbelievably funny and he couldn't help but curl over in hysterical laughter.
Because he'd come 'round full-circle. Why did they want him? Why does anybody want him? Everybody wants Clark Kent!
...Why did the Kent's want him?
Then it stopped being funny.
Because the Kents had wanted him. Desperately. And Lex had always assumed that it was because they couldn't have children themselves, and Clark had been such a cute little kid (he'd seen pictures once), but...
If you thought about it, and Lex was starting to, with his alien abilities, Clark could have run the entire farm himself without even breaking a sweat. And that would be highly advantageous to a farm family -- having a kid around who could be paid in just room and board, clothed and fed, a small price to have someone to do the hardest, meanest, dirtiest, worst work.
I wonder if they knew before they adopted him...
Idiot. Of course they'd known he was an alien. They'd probably run across the spaceship he'd come to Earth in, because no-one but that drunken pilot had spoken of seeing it during the meteor shower, and it had only surfaced again after tornados hit town that one summer. That was too much of a coincidence for it to have been held elsewhere. Then it had disappeared pretty damn fast from Pete's custody that summer -- from the rumors he'd heard, he had no doubt that that had been what Pete had found, especially since he'd been screaming about aliens in front of a busload of people a few days later -- but Pete had been mum on the subject since. Maybe the Kents could have stolen it without outside assistance, but Pete's silence on the matter made it evident that that was not the case. There was no way that Pete would have stayed silent if Clark hadn't been the one to talk him into keeping quiet about it, and Lex doubted it would have been taken care of so quickly if the elder Kents hadn't known the spaceship was Clark's -- after all, where else would Clark have hidden it, if not on the farm?
...But had they known about his abilities? Had Clark had them all along? How did one raise an alien world-conqueror-to-be to have such polite manners towards humans when said alien could flip cars and set people on fire whenever he felt like it? How did you discipline a child who was stronger than you and invulnerable to physical harm?
Lex shivered again, and only partly due to the cold. He quickly and efficiently gathered up the photos again and rewrapped them, then unlocked the door to his bedroom and started slightly when he saw one of the maids making his bed. He held his hand behind him, hiding the packet of photos from view, and ordered her out, locking his bedroom door again. He set the photo packet down momentarly as he walked into his closet, dropped the towel, and got dressed.
I'm going to have to give new instructions to the staff to stay out of my rooms, Lex realized dismally, though he knew that was probably a bad idea. He couldn't risk someone coming in and tidying up when he wasn't awake or aware enough to keep the photos hidden, and he shouldn't have to lock himself in the bathroom every time he wanted to look over them, damnit. Then he also realized that such an instruction wouldn't be enough, because Lionel would hear of it, as he always did, wonder what Lex was up to, and...
Lex's fingers stilled on the current button on his shirt. Lionel.
He'd been sure for a while now that Lionel was involved with the aliens somehow, after what had happened after the second meteor shower. His dementia. Those drawings. The white eyes. So like Dr. Walden. So very like what had happened after Dr. Walden had been exposed to the alien technology in the caves, after having used the unearthly metal key that was now lost. Lost like the ship. Lost like Professor Milton Fine.
Lionel had disappeared from Belle Reeve at right about the time Clark had been pronounced dead, and only resurfaced after Clark had had his 'miracle' recovery.
From reconstruction of the damage at the scene, the clear observation wall of the cell in which Lionel had been placed had been smashed through with one punch. No-one had seen him leave.
Strength and speed?
Except Lionel had somehow recovered afterwards, had his own 'miracle' recovery. And both Lionel and Clark had been given clean, normal bills of health. Nothing out of the ordinary. No supernormal abilities. No strange powers or resistances. Nothing to see here, move on.
Had Lionel covered for them both afterwards? Or did these aliens have a physiology that really was that similar to humans, somehow, and not just in outer appearance? ...No, Lionel must have done something. He must have. It made no sense otherwise. He knew something, and was covering it all up. He had to be.
Lionel had talked, or rambled, very little while he'd been in confined in Belle Reeve, but he had spoken a few things of interest. Yet he claimed later that he didn't remember anything about any 'Krypton' or 'Kalel'. Lex couldn't beleve that was true. Not when Lionel had been the one to needle him about losing the ship. He'd known about it, far more than he should have. Far more than could have been accounted for by spies in his staff. And then Lionel had needled him about Griff's 'disappearance' and then Fine's disappearance as well, in exactly the same way he'd chided Lex about losing the ship.
Reading between the lines, had he been implying that Fine had something to do with the Black Ship?
Fine had been in contact with Clark quite a bit lately, and not just through the common college coursework. He'd seemed to have taken a special interest in Clark. Lex had discovered, in the course of trying to track down Clark by tracing back his movements, that Fine had been closely involved with Clark during the silver meteor rock episode, several times, in fact. He'd reportedly also spent a significant amount of time with the Kents during the period of Martha's strange illness prior to the election. He'd disappeared off the grid shortly after Mrs. Kent had become well again.
Lionel and Clark. Clark in the caves, and Lionel acting like someone who had been affected by the caves. (Was Clark really Kalel?) The other two aliens, looking for Kalel. Both had disappeared after hurting Lana, and Clark had found her there. (After they were gone, or before?) Clark and Fine, and Fine had also disappeared. (How had Martha recovered? What had even been wrong in the first place, and what had it had to do with Fine?) ...Lionel was the only one still around who Lex knew was in on it. He and Lana were left out in the cold. Chloe had been out in the cold, and been brought into the inner fold.
What could omnipotent alien conquerers possibly need human help for?
Where had the Black Ship and those omnipotent aliens gone?
Where had Milton Fine disappeared off to?
What the hell was going on?
And what was Krypton? Or who?
Lex grimaced and slammed his closet door shut. He finished up his cufflinks, and checked his phone messages absently, scooping up the thin packet of pictures and sliding it into an inner jacket pocket. Keeping it close to his chest.
He made his way out of his set of rooms and down the hallway, frowning to himself.
Are Lionel and Clark really working together? Lex felt highly uncomfortable even considering the thought, because the level of betrayal there would be... But he had to consider the possibility -- he couldn't let himself be blindsided because hadn't been thorough, just to avoid unpleasant thoughts that he didn't like in the short term -- so he did.
Lionel had been trying to get chummy with the Kents lately, "trying" being the operative word. Lex had thought it was because Lionel had been sniffing around Martha again. But what if he'd really been trying to get close to Clark? --But if they were working together, should he really have to try so hard to get in contact? Not to mention that Lex could have sworn that Clark didn't want anything to do with Lionel -- never had, and still didn't. In fact, lately Clark seemed to be actively avoiding Lionel, as far as Lex had been able to determine. Clark wasn't that great a liar, his dad wasn't out of surveillance for extended periods of time, and where his dad was, Clark tended not to be.
If they could move faster than the speed of sound, they wouldn't need more than a handful of seconds, though.
All right. This was madness. His own father wasn't an alien. It made more sense that these aliens could temporarily bestow their own powerset on the human of their choice for short periods of time.
Then why do I believe that Clark is an alien and my father is not, when they have both exhibited the same powerset as the two aliens that came out of the Black Ship? Why is that my gut instinct?
(Assuming the male and female who had exited the spaceship hadn't also been turned humans, abducted at some point prior. ...No. He wasn't going to go there. Occam's Razor was useful for a reason. Aliens brainwashing humans into thinking they were aliens, weaponizing them, and then sending them back to destroy their own planet? That would be just too convoluted by far. By comparison, it'd be far easier for a space-faring race to have just kept dropping meteors from orbit onto every human settlement and wipe them out that way... and why the hell hadn't they done that? Or was Smallville just special that way?)
It took him a while to muddle through his instinctual emotions -- he'd never been good with his feelings, but he did now better than to second-guess his own intuitive leaps by now. And, what it boiled down to was basically this:
Clark had spent a lot of time doing or being involved in mysterious things that could be explained very easily if he had that powerset. There were only a few short periods of time during which Clark seemed to be provably human-normal.
Lionel had spent a few short periods of time acting strangely after being influenced by alien technology. The rest of the time he acted like the overbearing bastard he was.
Also, Lex was pretty damn sure that he himself was not some alien-human hybrid, and that the Lionel Luthor currently making trouble for him, who looked and walked and talked and acted like his father, really was his father and had not been swapped out for some lookalike alien pretender.
Besides, if Lionel was a nigh-invincible alien, he would've taken over the planet decades ago, forget this "take over the world through economic means" crap.
The only good news out of all this was that maybe, just maybe, the nigh-invincible aliens did actually have some weakness that could be exploited. Because if Clark could bleed, Lex would bet that those other aliens would, too. Under the right circumstances.
He needed to talk to Lana. She'd interacted with them, twice, and survived fairly well intact. She knew more about the aliens than anyone else... who was willing to talk to him and not lie, anyway. Lex briskly made his way to the carport and slid behind the wheel. Then he had to stop himself, cursing. He couldn't just go tearing off to the Talon to meet her -- he had work at the plant, and Lana was probably attending classes at her college that afternoon.
He decided to get to the plant and finish things as quickly as humanly (hah!) possible, and then head directly for the Talon.
He managed to make it to Plant No. 3 and all the way to lunchtime without thinking any more about aliens, or spaceships, or Clark. Then, something struck him, out of nowhere. Something he hadn't considered at all, for even a second.
...Maybe Clark is an unwilling participant?
And that thought stole Lex's breath away.
Then Lex shook himself. ...No, that was too much to hope for right now. While that would explain a lot, Clark had still lied to him about the most important of things, multiple times. He'd effectively supplied misinformation and delayed Lex's efforts in so doing. Lex had been forced to backtrack and search for alternative sources of information which more often than not simply didn't exist, spending far too much time he didn't have to spare in futile research. That was not the sort of thing a conscientious objector did, let alone an ally.
A hand drifted up to the pocket holding the photos... and then he realized what he was doing and lay it flat on the desk in front of him, firmly.
Because that was an even worse idea. Confronting Clark directly? Now? Telling him that Lex knew he was an alien, knew he was a pawn in the larger secret war against humanity? Clark would either deny it, laughing, and lie to his face again, or... not.
And 'not' could quite possibly be worse than Lex could imagine. Clark got belligerent about his secrets. Angry. Aggressive. Every time. Always. If Lex accosted him and tried to back him into a corner -- with irrefutable evidence he didn't have (yet), by-the-by -- Clark would see it as an accusation, no matter how Lex tried to phrase the situation. And more than likely, he would then see Lex as an enemy and act accordingly. Lex did not want that. He absolutely did not want that. He'd heard about and seen the aftermath of a set of alien menaces acting without restraint. He didn't want Clark to take the gloves off.
Lex had only to think back and remember that episode when Clark had been influenced by silver meteor rock for a good example of that. He'd been beaten and tossed about like a rag doll while Clark had ranted about medical labs and... suddenly some of the content of that conversation prompted by paranoid fear made a lot more sense. Of course an alien would be worried about being taken to a lab for experiments and tests... if he was vulnerable...
Lex stopped midchew, and slowly set his fork down.
...Didn't Lana say that Clark had been infected by it through a splinter in his finger?
Something as simple as a splinter had gotten through Clark's skin? That didn't sound like an invincible alien who could shrug off bullets, like the others had.
Lex frowned as he thought through that conversation with Lana again. Then he grimaced. Lana had said that Chloe had been the one who had told her that Clark had been infected, and Chloe was an unreliable source of information. She worked for Clark.
Unfortunately, that silver meteor rock had disappeared from his labs as well. (Lex noted a disturbing pattern, there.) So even if it was something that could have been used against the aliens, it was a moot point -- no-one had found any sort of similar meteor rock type resembling that sample, before or since, and he'd had people looking for it specifically. Lex couldn't construct a weapon he could use from a substance he didn't have.
Then, Lex looked up and realized that he was getting stared at by his staff. So he smiled around the conference table to help relieve the tension, and picked up his fork again. He wasn't all that hungry, but that wasn't an excuse for not finishing his salad.
Right. Back to business, he thought. Step 1: Don't even think about doing something that might piss off the near-omnipotent alien menace until you have some weapon that will work against them. In defense. As a last resort. Because Lex needed information. What he wanted wasn't a Clark strapped down to a table. He'd much rather have Clark working for him, supplying him with the knowledge he needed. The perfect outcome would be to turn Clark nee Kalel into a double-agent.
Then he rethought that and revised it to be: Step 1: Find or otherwise discover a weapon or weakness in the aliens that can be exploited. (See Lana to brainstorm.) Step 2: Gather firm evidence of Clark being an alien that he can't weasel his way out of or otherwise deny. Step 3: Confront Clark with irrefutable evidence and bring weapon just in case. Step 4: Forcibly conscript Clark as a double-agent working on the side of humanity. Oh, yes, and of course Lex couldn't forget Step 5: Work on a plan to beat the alien menace and save humanity from extinction, or worse.
That would be a lot of prep work, but that was fine with Lex. He wasn't really looking forward to confronting Clark immediately. Besides, now probably wouldn't be a good time anyway. He's still dealing with--
Snow falling.
--whispered--
I killed him.
Encircling arms, clinging.
Shaking like a brittle leaf in a cold wind.
Shaking like he was coming apart at the seams.
--Jonathan's death. Oh shit. And he'd just broken up with Lana earlier that same damn day. Lex was an idiot.
Step 0: Get Clark back in a mental state where he isn't likely to have a psychotic break and subsequently run around killing off the entire population of the planet on his own.
And, speaking of which...
Step -1: Get Lionel the hell away from Clark by any means necessary. Because none of this would work if Lex didn't separate Lionel from Clark. If Lex had to worry about Lionel interfering... Lionel was all about the mindgames, and Lex really needed to not have to worry about a turncoat traitor giving counterintelligence to the alien enemy, or turning Clark against him (again?).
Lex put down his fork again, now having completely lost his appetite. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. Why the hell is Clark blaming himself for Jonathan's death, anyway? It was crystal-clear that Jonathan had had a stroke, then died of a heart attack shortly thereafter. There had even been a nosy neighbor who had witnessed it. Clark hadn't even been there -- discounting the possibility of super speed -- until right before Jonathan had collapsed. He'd barely caught Mr. Kent before he'd hit the ground, and why the hell hadn't Clark used his speed to get Jonathan to the hospital if he--
Oh.
But maybe...
No.
Clark said he'd killed Jonathan. In the Clark Kent lexicon, Lex knew that particular sort of phrasing implied that what had happened was Clark's fault, not that Clark had merely not acted in time. This is worse than simple guilt.
So how would a heart attack be Clark's fault?
Well, what had caused the heart attack?
A heart that went from being 20-year-old healthy to 70-year-old unhealthy. (And how the hell did something like that happen? ...Extreme stress? Stress from what? Raising the perfect -- alien -- son?)
What had happened with Clark two and a half years ago?
He'd run off to Metropolis and refused to come home.
And then he'd come home.
Jonathan had brought him back.
How do you discipline a child who is stronger than you and invulnerable to physical harm?
Jonathan must have known, but Jonathan was dead now. (...Had he gotten in the way of the alien invasion plan, somehow?) And Clark hadn't been able to do anything to stop it.
Did Martha know? (Was she in danger of dying?)
...How had Clark come back from the dead before?
And why hadn't Jonathan been saved using the same method? Clark would do it if he could, wouldn't he?
...Maybe it only worked on aliens?
God, Clark must be going through hell right now if that were true. Lex's brain couldn't properly process the thought that Clark might be brought back, again and again and again, until he finished what he had to do -- whatever that was -- while everyone else around him died.
"Unstoppable alien menace" does not do the concept justice.
Because they'd probably barely be able to kill a handful of these nearly invulnerable almost omnipotent aliens as it was, if they were lucky and if they planned well. But if the aliens didn't actually stay dead...
Fuck.
"...Are you all right, sir?"
Lex nearly jumped out of his chair.
He glanced up at the worried-looking intern, dug deep, and gave him a smile.
"Just thinking weighty thoughts," Lex said lightly. Looking around, he realized that everyone had finished eating, and the lunch break was over. So Lex forced his mind back to the business at hand, finished off the planning session, and then got himself back to his office.
And then he made a phone call.
He might not be able to tell Clark that it wasn't his fault that Jonathan had died and make him believe it -- because god knew whether that was actually true or not, at this point -- but he could look into the suspicious events that led up to Jonathan's heart attack and try to mitigate the guilt Clark was feeling at least a little bit. After all, Jonathan should have been at the paty at the Talon, not the farm. The timing for the stroke-cum-heart-attack was highly suspect, in particular.
Lex had already found one eyewitness. He wondered what else they might have to say about the events that night.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Next section located here.
Author: josephina_x
Fandom: Smallville
Pairing: pre-Clex
Rating: PG-13 (mild cursing)
Spoilers: Up through the end of Reckoning in season 5. Goes slightly AU at Lexmas ("when given a nail..."). Things start to snowball here. Spans Vengeance, but references a lot of earlier season 5.
Word count: 20,900+
Summary: Lex may be missing a few prerequisites for this one. He wants Clark to tutor him, but Clark is barely muddling through on his own as it is. Unfortunately, failure is not an option that either of them can live with, and they're worried they're being graded on a curve...
Warnings: Un-beta'd. More Evil Italics Of Doom, emphasis mine. Oh and yeah, there's a lot of thinky!Lex and not so much action. Consider yourself warned.
Disclaimer: Not mine, not-for-profit.
Comments: Yes, please! :)
Author's Note: Second in the "Learning Curve" series, and certainly not the last. (Are you kidding? We're only just getting started! *g*) "Lexmas, Interrupted" was the first-written and Lex POV; this one continues in the Lex POV tradition. Spans only one episode this time, so it's a bit slower-going than the first fic. I also wasn't as 'ready-steady-go!' from initial conception to writing for this one as the previous, and didn't do quite as much hard-core episode research as before, but I hope you will all still find it enjoyable regardless :)
Happy Birthday jlvsclrk! I remember you wanting more of this -- see, look, I'm making it better! (Sort of. For varying values of 'better'. *eg*)
Next section located here.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex groaned as he blinked open gummy eyes at his ceiling.
He'd managed to make it back to bed, after all. Wonderful.
He rolled over, then slowly levered himself upright, showing care to his aching head. Right, he needed a shower, and hydration. Maybe not in that order.
It tasted like something had died in his mouth.
Dental hygiene first, then, Lex sighed, grimacing.
He shoved himself shakily upright and slowly staggered to the bathroom.
Then he did a quick 180, half-threw himself across his bed, and made a mad scrabble under his pillow.
He snatched up the small packet of photos, clutching them to his chest, and stumbled into the bathroom, slamming the door shut and locking it. He collapsed against it, panting heavily and shivering.
Lex ripped off the paper covering and checked every single photo in the stack to make sure he wasn't missing any of them before he did anything else.
~*~*~*~*~*~
After feeling somewhat human again, having brushed, flossed, drank at least a liter of water straight from the tap (ugh), and showered, Lex stepped out of the bath, wrapped a towel around himself, and leaned back against the wall, glaring at the packet of photos lying unobtrusively on the corner of the sink counter.
Lying like Clark lied, all innocent-looking on the outside, and chock full of world-shattering secrets on the inside.
Bastard.
Where the hell had Griff gotten the photos? From Nixon? By way of Sam Phelan? Because many of the pictures were something like four years old, if going by Clark's hairstyle was any indication, or his relative height compared to his parents in the scenes.
The papers that had accompanied the photos were stored in the library's wall safe. They were damning of the parents, not the adopted child, and were far safer in that sense.
Especially since if Lionel found those it wouldn't be a problem -- they didn't include any information he didn't already know, after all.
Lex had debated back-and-forth with himself about a dozen times last night as to whether to burn the photos or not. It was highly damning material, not safe to keep intact at the risk of someone else obtaining them through carelessness or theft. However, it was also clear evidence against Clark that he could use to force Clark to admit the truth, not ephemeral memories which Clark could feel relatively secure in trying to wave off as he had every single damn time previous. This made them highly valuable, indeed, and possibly irreplaceable -- Clark must have learned some discretion finally, in his parent's senate bid, because if he'd been that open in displaying his strength with the farm crawling with reporters day-in and day-out, someone would have caught him in the act by now and had the photos plastered across every newspaper in the state if he hadn't. Hence Lex's reluctance to part with them permanently: he might not be able to obtain more later, even knowing what he was looking for. That fiasco with the Level 3 escapees was a blazing reminder speaking for extreme caution. ...And yes, he'd upgraded the security since, along with relocating and renaming the project.
Of course, what exactly Clark's truth was was still up for debate. Lex's eyes drooped as he reassessed the conclusion he'd immediately jumped to last night -- that Clark was an alien, of the same type as the ones Lana had run afoul of during the second meteor shower. That Clark was the "Kalel" that they'd been searching for, for whatever purpose they'd not felt the need to disclose to mere humans.
Lex's gut instinct still told him that that was the correct conclusion -- an alien Clark -- even without the half-bottle of hard liquor shoring it up -- but evidence-wise? No, he had no clear evidence of that. Not yet.
If Lex confronted Clark with the photos, he wanted to make sure Clark didn't try to wriggle out of it by claiming that he was "just" a simple meteor freak. As thing stood now, Lex still needed to take a magnifying glass to some of the zoomed-out shots and confirm that Clark's face really had come through clearly on those; some of the zoomed-in shots would need defending simply because the shots were not in all cases completely framed by an indisputable backdrop of land and sky -- some, but not all.
But as damning as those photos were, they only showed strength -- not speed, and not the power to inflict third-degree burns on innocent people.
...Or did they? Speed could be proven if one knew the details of when and where the photos were taken...
And Lex found himself reopening the package and sitting on the tile floor of the bathroom, in the middle of a semi-circle-spread of images once again.
Son of a bitch. Some of those shots that hadn't been helpful before had had timestamps, and the locations were clear, even if Clark was a little hard to make out. He'd dismissed them before, too soon, because Clark hadn't been framed properly in what fantastic or mundane accomplishments he'd been pursuing, even if he had been visible and recognizeable. And, if the timestamps could be believed, he'd moved from the front door of the Kent farmhouse to... Lana's sorority house at Met U in Metropolis? In less than one minute? That was... that...
That was really fast. Clark must have been moving at least... how fast, exactly, was 'a lot'?
Lex estimated the distance between the two locales, frowned, did some mental math to come up with a hard figure, and audibly gasped.
He broke the sound barrier, Lex thought weakly, sagging back against the bathroom wall and staring up at the ceiling, almost wishing for the return of an ignorant haven of disbelief.
What the hell am I up against? he thought morosely, glancing down and looking at each of the pictures in turn, once again.
His palms were actually sweating. Lex rubbed his hands on the towel about his waist and suppressed a shiver.
If he decided to attack me, I wouldn't even be able to see him coming, Lex realized. No-one could. ...Except perhaps that young speedster, he remembered, grimacing to himself as he recalled the young thief, Bart Allen. But there was no way and no chance that Lex could convince the teenager to work with him, now, not after what had happened with the map. Another door closed.
I must be out of my mind, Lex thought weakly, feeling no small amount of despair. Clark was just one being, and capable of this. When Lex had had no proof of current ongoing alien operations, he'd believed that he had a chance to rally, to prepare, to be able to beat them back when they came the next time.
But there was no next time. They'd been here all along.
Game over, they'd already been invaded. They'd been occuppied for years. More than a decade, in fact. At the very least.
I thought I had more time...
He was in trouble. The entire human race was in trouble. They were all headed for extinction at the hands of an alien race with far superior firepower, and only a handful of people knew.
...But Clark didn't exactly seem like the world-conquering type.
Because if he was, why were they all still alive?
Why would Clark spend his time saving people? Stopping meteor mutants? Helping Chloe at The Torch? Spending time escorting Lana around town? ...Pulling drowned billionaires out of cars?
I'm missing a vital piece of information, here, Lex realized grimly. ...Possibly several.
And he'd thought that life would make so much moresense once he knew Clark's secret. The concept seemed laughable now. It's just the tip of the iceberg...
...and, come to think of it, Chloe had magically materialized in the Arctic circle after disappearing from right in front of the doorway to the back room in the caves, hadn't she? ...Trying to follow Kalel? Or in his footsteps?
It was almost poetic, in a crazy horrifyingly-scary way.
And he didn't care what Clark said -- Lex knew it had been him in those caves, standing in that secret cavern, or someone who had looked near-enough like him to be brethren. If Clark wasn't Kalel, then he was a very close blood-relative of the alien. Lex had asked him directly, and the bastard had straight-out lied to his face. (Just like the bridge -- Lex had hit him and Clark had denied it the same way.)
Lex realized he was shaking, and he knew he needed to stop. This was an unproductive line of thought. He unclenched his fists, took a deep breath and mentally took a step back. Don't let this get personal, don't get emotional, or you'll make mistakes, he told himself. Go with your strengths. Business dealings. Negotiations. Treat it like a hostile takeover. Start with what you know. Intelligence reports, movements in the field. Acquisitions, mergers, partnerships, opponents, enemies. Apparent strengths and weaknesses, resources that they can draw upon. Then move on to their actions and possible motives.
There were aliens called Kryptonians around Earth. On Earth. Interested in Earth.
They crash-landed during meteor-shower events that fell on Smallville. There were many resultant deaths, both times.
Two of the aliens were obviously allies, working together. There was a third who they were seeking.
Did they find Kalel? Had a merger or partnership occurred? ...Lex had to leave the thought aside for the moment.
They were extremely strong, unbelievably fast, could shoot fire from their eyes, or near enough as made no difference, and cared not for the sanctity of any human life.
Lex couldn't think of any weaknesses. As far as he knew, they had none. They'd seemed invincible.
They'd crashlanded near the town and brazenly left their spaceship behind at the crater's impact site, and proceeded to slaughter their way through half the police officers in town. They'd treated every human within armsreach with zero respect or concern for their well-being, and inflicted pain and suffering, or worse, on most anyone they approached. They'd said they were looking for "Kalel". Someone who wouldn't bleed. (But Clark did bleed. Lex had seen it. Several times now.) But why had they wanted to find him? And where were they now? They'd mysteriously vanished; they'd been last seen approaching the mansion. Why had they stopped their swath of destruction after arriving here?
...What did they really want?
And what does Clark want? he then thought. Is it the same thing as the other aliens? He'd lived on Earth a long time. ...Maybe he didn't want to share?
Why did the others seek him out? Had he been their contact, Kalel? But they hadn't even known what Kalel looked like. That wasn't very furtive. And what had happened when he caught up with them? Because from what Lex knew of that day, Clark had been running all over town, seemingly trying to look after his friends, at least Lex had thought so at the time...
What did Clark do?
If the invasion was supposed to be a secret, the aliens shouldn't have been running around looking for him with only a name to guide them. If the invasion wasn't supposed to be a secret, then why hadn't this happened sixteen years ago during the first meteor shower? Had there been a change of plans midstream? Or was it something else?
Why did they stop their destructive rampage? Did they stop on their own, or did something or someone force them to?
Why were they looking for Kalel? Why did they want him? Lex thought, and then something struck him as unbelievably funny and he couldn't help but curl over in hysterical laughter.
Because he'd come 'round full-circle. Why did they want him? Why does anybody want him? Everybody wants Clark Kent!
...Why did the Kent's want him?
Then it stopped being funny.
Because the Kents had wanted him. Desperately. And Lex had always assumed that it was because they couldn't have children themselves, and Clark had been such a cute little kid (he'd seen pictures once), but...
If you thought about it, and Lex was starting to, with his alien abilities, Clark could have run the entire farm himself without even breaking a sweat. And that would be highly advantageous to a farm family -- having a kid around who could be paid in just room and board, clothed and fed, a small price to have someone to do the hardest, meanest, dirtiest, worst work.
I wonder if they knew before they adopted him...
Idiot. Of course they'd known he was an alien. They'd probably run across the spaceship he'd come to Earth in, because no-one but that drunken pilot had spoken of seeing it during the meteor shower, and it had only surfaced again after tornados hit town that one summer. That was too much of a coincidence for it to have been held elsewhere. Then it had disappeared pretty damn fast from Pete's custody that summer -- from the rumors he'd heard, he had no doubt that that had been what Pete had found, especially since he'd been screaming about aliens in front of a busload of people a few days later -- but Pete had been mum on the subject since. Maybe the Kents could have stolen it without outside assistance, but Pete's silence on the matter made it evident that that was not the case. There was no way that Pete would have stayed silent if Clark hadn't been the one to talk him into keeping quiet about it, and Lex doubted it would have been taken care of so quickly if the elder Kents hadn't known the spaceship was Clark's -- after all, where else would Clark have hidden it, if not on the farm?
...But had they known about his abilities? Had Clark had them all along? How did one raise an alien world-conqueror-to-be to have such polite manners towards humans when said alien could flip cars and set people on fire whenever he felt like it? How did you discipline a child who was stronger than you and invulnerable to physical harm?
Lex shivered again, and only partly due to the cold. He quickly and efficiently gathered up the photos again and rewrapped them, then unlocked the door to his bedroom and started slightly when he saw one of the maids making his bed. He held his hand behind him, hiding the packet of photos from view, and ordered her out, locking his bedroom door again. He set the photo packet down momentarly as he walked into his closet, dropped the towel, and got dressed.
I'm going to have to give new instructions to the staff to stay out of my rooms, Lex realized dismally, though he knew that was probably a bad idea. He couldn't risk someone coming in and tidying up when he wasn't awake or aware enough to keep the photos hidden, and he shouldn't have to lock himself in the bathroom every time he wanted to look over them, damnit. Then he also realized that such an instruction wouldn't be enough, because Lionel would hear of it, as he always did, wonder what Lex was up to, and...
Lex's fingers stilled on the current button on his shirt. Lionel.
He'd been sure for a while now that Lionel was involved with the aliens somehow, after what had happened after the second meteor shower. His dementia. Those drawings. The white eyes. So like Dr. Walden. So very like what had happened after Dr. Walden had been exposed to the alien technology in the caves, after having used the unearthly metal key that was now lost. Lost like the ship. Lost like Professor Milton Fine.
Lionel had disappeared from Belle Reeve at right about the time Clark had been pronounced dead, and only resurfaced after Clark had had his 'miracle' recovery.
From reconstruction of the damage at the scene, the clear observation wall of the cell in which Lionel had been placed had been smashed through with one punch. No-one had seen him leave.
Strength and speed?
Except Lionel had somehow recovered afterwards, had his own 'miracle' recovery. And both Lionel and Clark had been given clean, normal bills of health. Nothing out of the ordinary. No supernormal abilities. No strange powers or resistances. Nothing to see here, move on.
Had Lionel covered for them both afterwards? Or did these aliens have a physiology that really was that similar to humans, somehow, and not just in outer appearance? ...No, Lionel must have done something. He must have. It made no sense otherwise. He knew something, and was covering it all up. He had to be.
Lionel had talked, or rambled, very little while he'd been in confined in Belle Reeve, but he had spoken a few things of interest. Yet he claimed later that he didn't remember anything about any 'Krypton' or 'Kalel'. Lex couldn't beleve that was true. Not when Lionel had been the one to needle him about losing the ship. He'd known about it, far more than he should have. Far more than could have been accounted for by spies in his staff. And then Lionel had needled him about Griff's 'disappearance' and then Fine's disappearance as well, in exactly the same way he'd chided Lex about losing the ship.
Reading between the lines, had he been implying that Fine had something to do with the Black Ship?
Fine had been in contact with Clark quite a bit lately, and not just through the common college coursework. He'd seemed to have taken a special interest in Clark. Lex had discovered, in the course of trying to track down Clark by tracing back his movements, that Fine had been closely involved with Clark during the silver meteor rock episode, several times, in fact. He'd reportedly also spent a significant amount of time with the Kents during the period of Martha's strange illness prior to the election. He'd disappeared off the grid shortly after Mrs. Kent had become well again.
Lionel and Clark. Clark in the caves, and Lionel acting like someone who had been affected by the caves. (Was Clark really Kalel?) The other two aliens, looking for Kalel. Both had disappeared after hurting Lana, and Clark had found her there. (After they were gone, or before?) Clark and Fine, and Fine had also disappeared. (How had Martha recovered? What had even been wrong in the first place, and what had it had to do with Fine?) ...Lionel was the only one still around who Lex knew was in on it. He and Lana were left out in the cold. Chloe had been out in the cold, and been brought into the inner fold.
What could omnipotent alien conquerers possibly need human help for?
Where had the Black Ship and those omnipotent aliens gone?
Where had Milton Fine disappeared off to?
What the hell was going on?
And what was Krypton? Or who?
Lex grimaced and slammed his closet door shut. He finished up his cufflinks, and checked his phone messages absently, scooping up the thin packet of pictures and sliding it into an inner jacket pocket. Keeping it close to his chest.
He made his way out of his set of rooms and down the hallway, frowning to himself.
Are Lionel and Clark really working together? Lex felt highly uncomfortable even considering the thought, because the level of betrayal there would be... But he had to consider the possibility -- he couldn't let himself be blindsided because hadn't been thorough, just to avoid unpleasant thoughts that he didn't like in the short term -- so he did.
Lionel had been trying to get chummy with the Kents lately, "trying" being the operative word. Lex had thought it was because Lionel had been sniffing around Martha again. But what if he'd really been trying to get close to Clark? --But if they were working together, should he really have to try so hard to get in contact? Not to mention that Lex could have sworn that Clark didn't want anything to do with Lionel -- never had, and still didn't. In fact, lately Clark seemed to be actively avoiding Lionel, as far as Lex had been able to determine. Clark wasn't that great a liar, his dad wasn't out of surveillance for extended periods of time, and where his dad was, Clark tended not to be.
If they could move faster than the speed of sound, they wouldn't need more than a handful of seconds, though.
All right. This was madness. His own father wasn't an alien. It made more sense that these aliens could temporarily bestow their own powerset on the human of their choice for short periods of time.
Then why do I believe that Clark is an alien and my father is not, when they have both exhibited the same powerset as the two aliens that came out of the Black Ship? Why is that my gut instinct?
(Assuming the male and female who had exited the spaceship hadn't also been turned humans, abducted at some point prior. ...No. He wasn't going to go there. Occam's Razor was useful for a reason. Aliens brainwashing humans into thinking they were aliens, weaponizing them, and then sending them back to destroy their own planet? That would be just too convoluted by far. By comparison, it'd be far easier for a space-faring race to have just kept dropping meteors from orbit onto every human settlement and wipe them out that way... and why the hell hadn't they done that? Or was Smallville just special that way?)
It took him a while to muddle through his instinctual emotions -- he'd never been good with his feelings, but he did now better than to second-guess his own intuitive leaps by now. And, what it boiled down to was basically this:
Clark had spent a lot of time doing or being involved in mysterious things that could be explained very easily if he had that powerset. There were only a few short periods of time during which Clark seemed to be provably human-normal.
Lionel had spent a few short periods of time acting strangely after being influenced by alien technology. The rest of the time he acted like the overbearing bastard he was.
Also, Lex was pretty damn sure that he himself was not some alien-human hybrid, and that the Lionel Luthor currently making trouble for him, who looked and walked and talked and acted like his father, really was his father and had not been swapped out for some lookalike alien pretender.
Besides, if Lionel was a nigh-invincible alien, he would've taken over the planet decades ago, forget this "take over the world through economic means" crap.
The only good news out of all this was that maybe, just maybe, the nigh-invincible aliens did actually have some weakness that could be exploited. Because if Clark could bleed, Lex would bet that those other aliens would, too. Under the right circumstances.
He needed to talk to Lana. She'd interacted with them, twice, and survived fairly well intact. She knew more about the aliens than anyone else... who was willing to talk to him and not lie, anyway. Lex briskly made his way to the carport and slid behind the wheel. Then he had to stop himself, cursing. He couldn't just go tearing off to the Talon to meet her -- he had work at the plant, and Lana was probably attending classes at her college that afternoon.
He decided to get to the plant and finish things as quickly as humanly (hah!) possible, and then head directly for the Talon.
He managed to make it to Plant No. 3 and all the way to lunchtime without thinking any more about aliens, or spaceships, or Clark. Then, something struck him, out of nowhere. Something he hadn't considered at all, for even a second.
...Maybe Clark is an unwilling participant?
And that thought stole Lex's breath away.
Then Lex shook himself. ...No, that was too much to hope for right now. While that would explain a lot, Clark had still lied to him about the most important of things, multiple times. He'd effectively supplied misinformation and delayed Lex's efforts in so doing. Lex had been forced to backtrack and search for alternative sources of information which more often than not simply didn't exist, spending far too much time he didn't have to spare in futile research. That was not the sort of thing a conscientious objector did, let alone an ally.
A hand drifted up to the pocket holding the photos... and then he realized what he was doing and lay it flat on the desk in front of him, firmly.
Because that was an even worse idea. Confronting Clark directly? Now? Telling him that Lex knew he was an alien, knew he was a pawn in the larger secret war against humanity? Clark would either deny it, laughing, and lie to his face again, or... not.
And 'not' could quite possibly be worse than Lex could imagine. Clark got belligerent about his secrets. Angry. Aggressive. Every time. Always. If Lex accosted him and tried to back him into a corner -- with irrefutable evidence he didn't have (yet), by-the-by -- Clark would see it as an accusation, no matter how Lex tried to phrase the situation. And more than likely, he would then see Lex as an enemy and act accordingly. Lex did not want that. He absolutely did not want that. He'd heard about and seen the aftermath of a set of alien menaces acting without restraint. He didn't want Clark to take the gloves off.
Lex had only to think back and remember that episode when Clark had been influenced by silver meteor rock for a good example of that. He'd been beaten and tossed about like a rag doll while Clark had ranted about medical labs and... suddenly some of the content of that conversation prompted by paranoid fear made a lot more sense. Of course an alien would be worried about being taken to a lab for experiments and tests... if he was vulnerable...
Lex stopped midchew, and slowly set his fork down.
...Didn't Lana say that Clark had been infected by it through a splinter in his finger?
Something as simple as a splinter had gotten through Clark's skin? That didn't sound like an invincible alien who could shrug off bullets, like the others had.
Lex frowned as he thought through that conversation with Lana again. Then he grimaced. Lana had said that Chloe had been the one who had told her that Clark had been infected, and Chloe was an unreliable source of information. She worked for Clark.
Unfortunately, that silver meteor rock had disappeared from his labs as well. (Lex noted a disturbing pattern, there.) So even if it was something that could have been used against the aliens, it was a moot point -- no-one had found any sort of similar meteor rock type resembling that sample, before or since, and he'd had people looking for it specifically. Lex couldn't construct a weapon he could use from a substance he didn't have.
Then, Lex looked up and realized that he was getting stared at by his staff. So he smiled around the conference table to help relieve the tension, and picked up his fork again. He wasn't all that hungry, but that wasn't an excuse for not finishing his salad.
Right. Back to business, he thought. Step 1: Don't even think about doing something that might piss off the near-omnipotent alien menace until you have some weapon that will work against them. In defense. As a last resort. Because Lex needed information. What he wanted wasn't a Clark strapped down to a table. He'd much rather have Clark working for him, supplying him with the knowledge he needed. The perfect outcome would be to turn Clark nee Kalel into a double-agent.
Then he rethought that and revised it to be: Step 1: Find or otherwise discover a weapon or weakness in the aliens that can be exploited. (See Lana to brainstorm.) Step 2: Gather firm evidence of Clark being an alien that he can't weasel his way out of or otherwise deny. Step 3: Confront Clark with irrefutable evidence and bring weapon just in case. Step 4: Forcibly conscript Clark as a double-agent working on the side of humanity. Oh, yes, and of course Lex couldn't forget Step 5: Work on a plan to beat the alien menace and save humanity from extinction, or worse.
That would be a lot of prep work, but that was fine with Lex. He wasn't really looking forward to confronting Clark immediately. Besides, now probably wouldn't be a good time anyway. He's still dealing with--
Snow falling.
--whispered--
I killed him.
Encircling arms, clinging.
Shaking like a brittle leaf in a cold wind.
Shaking like he was coming apart at the seams.
--Jonathan's death. Oh shit. And he'd just broken up with Lana earlier that same damn day. Lex was an idiot.
Step 0: Get Clark back in a mental state where he isn't likely to have a psychotic break and subsequently run around killing off the entire population of the planet on his own.
And, speaking of which...
Step -1: Get Lionel the hell away from Clark by any means necessary. Because none of this would work if Lex didn't separate Lionel from Clark. If Lex had to worry about Lionel interfering... Lionel was all about the mindgames, and Lex really needed to not have to worry about a turncoat traitor giving counterintelligence to the alien enemy, or turning Clark against him (again?).
Lex put down his fork again, now having completely lost his appetite. He sighed and leaned back in his chair, pinching the bridge of his nose. Why the hell is Clark blaming himself for Jonathan's death, anyway? It was crystal-clear that Jonathan had had a stroke, then died of a heart attack shortly thereafter. There had even been a nosy neighbor who had witnessed it. Clark hadn't even been there -- discounting the possibility of super speed -- until right before Jonathan had collapsed. He'd barely caught Mr. Kent before he'd hit the ground, and why the hell hadn't Clark used his speed to get Jonathan to the hospital if he--
Oh.
But maybe...
No.
Clark said he'd killed Jonathan. In the Clark Kent lexicon, Lex knew that particular sort of phrasing implied that what had happened was Clark's fault, not that Clark had merely not acted in time. This is worse than simple guilt.
So how would a heart attack be Clark's fault?
Well, what had caused the heart attack?
A heart that went from being 20-year-old healthy to 70-year-old unhealthy. (And how the hell did something like that happen? ...Extreme stress? Stress from what? Raising the perfect -- alien -- son?)
What had happened with Clark two and a half years ago?
He'd run off to Metropolis and refused to come home.
And then he'd come home.
Jonathan had brought him back.
How do you discipline a child who is stronger than you and invulnerable to physical harm?
Jonathan must have known, but Jonathan was dead now. (...Had he gotten in the way of the alien invasion plan, somehow?) And Clark hadn't been able to do anything to stop it.
Did Martha know? (Was she in danger of dying?)
...How had Clark come back from the dead before?
And why hadn't Jonathan been saved using the same method? Clark would do it if he could, wouldn't he?
...Maybe it only worked on aliens?
God, Clark must be going through hell right now if that were true. Lex's brain couldn't properly process the thought that Clark might be brought back, again and again and again, until he finished what he had to do -- whatever that was -- while everyone else around him died.
"Unstoppable alien menace" does not do the concept justice.
Because they'd probably barely be able to kill a handful of these nearly invulnerable almost omnipotent aliens as it was, if they were lucky and if they planned well. But if the aliens didn't actually stay dead...
Fuck.
"...Are you all right, sir?"
Lex nearly jumped out of his chair.
He glanced up at the worried-looking intern, dug deep, and gave him a smile.
"Just thinking weighty thoughts," Lex said lightly. Looking around, he realized that everyone had finished eating, and the lunch break was over. So Lex forced his mind back to the business at hand, finished off the planning session, and then got himself back to his office.
And then he made a phone call.
He might not be able to tell Clark that it wasn't his fault that Jonathan had died and make him believe it -- because god knew whether that was actually true or not, at this point -- but he could look into the suspicious events that led up to Jonathan's heart attack and try to mitigate the guilt Clark was feeling at least a little bit. After all, Jonathan should have been at the paty at the Talon, not the farm. The timing for the stroke-cum-heart-attack was highly suspect, in particular.
Lex had already found one eyewitness. He wondered what else they might have to say about the events that night.
~*~*~*~*~*~
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