Fic: Aliens 601, For Humans (Part 1) (kind of a b'day fic for jlvsclrk) (3/3, 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: Previous section located here.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex sighed in frustration, leaned back in his chair, and scrubbed at his face with his hands.
God, how did I not see this coming?
...No, he knew. He knew exactly how. He had been distracted all day by the alien, and Clark, and alien-Clark, and the missing Black Ship, and even though he'd not spent much time ruminating on it during his work, it had been in the back of his mind all day, fragmenting his focus.
Three guesses behind the Chinese interest in LuthorCorp all of a sudden.
If Lionel wasn't behind this Apex Group, he'd eat his tie.
Damnit, damnit, damnit!
LuthorCorp stock had fallen after Lex's political loss, but things hadn't been really bad until the frantic trading that had been going on today. The overseas trading in the Asian market that had artificially pushed the stock price back upwards, but it was looking like someone was setting the stage for a buyout. Lex had sunk a good chunk of his own funds into his campaign, so he wouldn't have been able to buy up most of the outstanding stocks himself to gain a majority holding, or even stabilize the price, even if he had been aware of it earlier that day.
If LuthorCorp was approached with an offer, Lex knew the board would refuse -- they were his, now -- but knowing Lionel and his laundry list of contacts in the banking sector and the Federal Trade Commission, that meant Lionel would just move to making it a hostile takeover instead.
This was going to get ugly.
...And the markets were closed for the day in the US, so there was nothing he could do on his end. Not without stretching himself even thinner by transferring money into the overseas markets and risking overextending himself, at least. Infuriating.
He needed a break.
Lex pushed back his chair from his desk in the library and stood up, stretching. He glanced through his other, less urgent messages and saw one regarding that nosy neighbor who had witnessed the incident at the Kent farm. Apparently Mrs. Heddle was in and out quite a bit, and his investigator was going to try to contact her tomorrow morning.
Hm. Well, no reason to put it off, and he could certainly use a trip to the Talon for the leftovers of the day's coffee. Why not do it himself?
He decided to walk instead of drive.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex had missed the old woman himself -- having knocked on the door and seen no-one, and no car in the driveway.
A helpful neighbor had been happy to inform him, however, that she was off with her bridge group in Granville, and wouldn't be back until later that night. She also said that she'd be happy to let Mrs. Heddle know he was looking for her.
Lex sighed and thanked her, and made his way to the Talon for a much-needed, much-deserved caffeine boost.
He enjoyed the nighttime stroll, drinking in the cool air with a shiver as he pulled his coat closer about him.
But, as he walked up to the coffee house, he was startled to see Lana's car in the street. ...It should have been a pleasant surprise. He wasn't entirely sure why it wasn't.
Lex ducked into the alleyway to take the back entrance in, and nearly ran straight into Lana.
"Ah, Lana!"
"Lex," Lana smiled back.
"I saw your car out front. Looks like old habits die hard."
"Mrs. Kent asked me to close up for the night. They're going through a lot right now."
Lex nodded, a little tongue-tied for what to say. He hadn't really spoken to her since the aftermath of the car chase. They hadn't really discussed...
-- the kiss --
...his behavior.
"Lex, it's okay. You already said 'I'm sorry.' "
"Yeah, well, it means more when it's coming from someone who's not drunk," he grimaced self-deprecatingly. Then, because he was a glutton for punishment, he said, "It seemed you were pretty upset with Clark that night. Are things better?"
Lana shook her head sadly, and Lex held his breath. "None of that really matters anymore. I just want to be able to help him through this difficult time."
Lois' words about his panting after Lana hounded his mind, and he mentally cursed the Lane girl. If he did anything with Lana from this point onward, it was going to be slow and at her own pace, damnit. And she would have to come to him. Lex was not going to fight Clark for her; it would have to be her choice.
Lex would just have to make sure she knew he was the better choice, was all.
"How's he doing?" Lex wasn't about to pass up a second opinion. After all, he was horribly biased, and more than a bit distracted lately, seeing double-motives in everything.
"Lex, we both know what it's like to lose a parent. He's devastated."
Lex nodded. "Yeah, I-I actually ran into him at the Talon earlier today."
"You did?"
Lex nodded. "He seemed better after... well. He seemed better when I left..."
"When did you see him? Early afternoon?"
Lex nodded. "How did you...?"
"Lois told me you were looking for me. She didn't say Clark had been there."
Lex didn't quite smirk. "I'm not surprised. Lois seems to be uncomfortable even thinking about emotional displays."
"Oh."
Lex had the grace to wince. "He seemed to feel better afterwards, at least..." Lex shrugged, looking away. Great, tell the girl you want to marry and spend the rest of your life with that you made her ex-boyfriend cry. Nice going there, fool.
"Well, as much as we both want to help, I think all we can do is really just be there for him," Lana said slowly, touching his arm.
Lex took an unsteady breath. "He's, uh... he's very lucky to have you in his life, Lana. But when the time comes for you to lean on someone... you know I'm always here."
Lana smiled at him, and Lex tried not to feel too guilty about it.
"You know, Lex, it goes both ways."
"...Both ways?"
"I'm always here, too. If you need someone to lean on."
"Ah, thank you," Lex said, not quite sure what to say.
Lana smiled again, and Lex helped her with her boxes.
Once they'd gotten everything into the back office of the Talon, though, as Lex put the final box down on the office desk, Lana walked over to the door, then closed and locked it. Then she turned to face Lex, leaning her back against it.
If Lex had been a paranoid man, he would have wondered why Lana was effectively guarding the only exit out.
"So, Lex. Are you going to tell me why exactly you were looking for me today?"
Oh.
For some reason, Lex was having misgivings about blurting out everything he knew, suspected, and had recently discovered, to her. He couldn't imagine why.
"I've been thinking..." he dissembled, sliding his hands into his pants pockets.
"You tend to do that a lot," Lana smiled back.
Lex was glad he didn't blush easily. "It has... occurred to me recently that... --There is something I forgot to ask you earlier." He swallowed. "About the day of the alien invasion."
"Go on," Lana prompted, after a rather long silence.
"I don't really know how to say this Lana, so I'll just say it. You are the only person who had that much exposure to those two aliens and survived, which means you probably know more about them than anyone else on the planet, right now." He took a deep breath. "If there is anything that you can think of that might be considered a weakness--"
"Meteor rock."
"--then I need to --what??"
"The meteor rock. They're vulnerable to it."
Lex stared at her.
"How--?" Then he shook himself. "I thought that you-- Didn't you say that you had been knocked unconscious? That you hadn't been the one to subdue or stop them?"
"I didn't." Lana sighed, then smiled at him self-deprecatingly. "When I told them to follow me to the mansion because Kalel was there, I tricked them into opening the large room-sized wall safe in the mansion's library, by the windows. The male grabbed the edge of the door and pulled it open, and collapsed, but I guess the female wasn't close enough to be affected right away, because she pulled the other alien away and slammed the door back shut."
"How close were they?"
"A few feet away."
The radiation. It had to be the radiation. "When you say 'collapsed', what do you mean by that, 'collapsed'?" Lex said, striding towards her and taking her by the arms. He only remembered to be gentle at the very last.
Lana gasped slightly, but said, "I mean he sort of... folded over. Like he was in pain. He looked sick. He couldn't move, really."
"And the female?"
"Looked sick, was moving more slowly. Once she closed the door, they got better almost immediately, though," Lana warned him.
Lex felt shell-shocked. He staggered backwards and sat down on the desk, hard.
"...Lex?"
But Lex was caught up in a maelstrom of memories. Clark. The Scarecrow of 2001. The necklace around his neck -- green meteor rock. How ill, how pale he'd looked, strung up there like that. How much better he'd looked off the makeshift cross, not nearly so pale. Looking down and finding the meteor rock left behind. The lead box with the necklace in it, how Clark had flinched away from Lex until Lex had snapped it shut. How uncertain Clark had looked approaching him after that. How skittish and... confused. How Clark had handled the box. How he'd stared at it.
"Green meteor rock?" Lex asked.
"Yes."
Lex closed his eyes.
"You're sure?"
"Yes, Lex." She sounded a little irritated.
Something slowly bubbled up from the rest of the screaming mess howling through his mind. "How did you know?"
"What?"
"How did you know that they were vulnerable to the meteor rock? You 'tricked them into it.' That implies you knew when you told them to open the safe. How did you know?"
"Lionel told me."
Lex looked up at her, hands braced on the edge of the table. He didn't have to look at his knuckles to know they were white. "When?"
"Earlier that day. He was scratching... things... into the floor. There was something wrong with his eyes."
So, after he'd been affected by the third Stone of Power. After the the Crystal of Water had burned its way through his body and onto the floor. "Go on, Lana. What did he say, specifically? Do you remember?"
"He said, 'The disciples of Zod. They must be stopped. Their home is their only poison.' "
"Zod..." Another name? A person, or a place? ...Wait. "--Their home?!"
Lana nodded.
"And you thought that meant the meteor rocks?"
"Well, they're space rocks, and the aliens are from space. Why not?"
"...Why not." Lex echoed weakly, staring right through her. Wasn't she taking a class in astronomy? Didn't she understand...?
"Lex, what's wrong?"
"Lana," he said, feeling pained, getting a horrible feeling about the whole thing. "If their home was those rocks, and it poisons them..."
Lana gave him a frowning look. Oh, she just wasn't getting it.
"Lana, people can't live in a place that is poison to them, and those meteor rocks were tiny when compared to most celestial objects. If that was their home, or part of what used to be their home... planet..."
"You think that might be all of them?"
"...Would that we were so lucky," Lex murmured, passing a hand across his face. More strongly: "Lana, those aliens obviously came from a space-faring civilization. If they'd had any warning at all of a catastrophe, I don't doubt that they would've evacuated their entire planet. That ship was more than likely a small scouting vessel."
Lana's eyes grew wide and terrrified. "Oh, god," she whispered, bringing her hands to her mouth.
"No, Lana," Lex moved to reassure her, reaching out and touching her forearms, rubbing his thumbs against them. "It's ok. That weakness -- the meteor rocks--"
"But there's not that much of it. Not nearly enough to go around, to protect the entire planet! Not and make it reach--"
"Lana, its the radiation that's important, I'm sure of it. We can characterize it, duplicate it. My research labs have already done some work in this regard, for other projects, like alternative fuels. I can just... shift the funding around a bit to make it higher priority. Once we have that knowledge, we can create lasers, for space defense. These aliens may move fast, but I doubt that they can move faster than light," he smiled.
His own tension dissolved as Lana began to relax. "We'll be safe, you'll see. God--" he laughed. "We can win this." We can win this! The aliens had a weakness that was easily exploitable... and could be used to differentiate them from the common human populace. They could do this. They could really do this. All they needed to do was get the technology together, bump the space program up a few years by sinking his R&D budget into the private space sector, get some space stations, defense satellites, and regular spaceships patrols into orbit, and they'd see a threat coming, be able to meet them head-on. The alien invasion wouldn't know what hit them-- some things you couldn't defend against, and while those ships might be equipped with radiation shields for long-duration trips that might be able to withstand a powerful laser of coherent energy, a green-meteor-rock-enhanced nuclear bomb going off in space nearby would get through any defense, no matter how sophisticated their battle plan might be--
...Wait.
That didn't sound right.
Why would a race of conquering alien warlords bring with them something that their enemy could use to destroy them?
Lex could sort of see it happening by accident in Clark's -- Kalel's -- case. Clark had just been a little kid during the first meteor shower, and probably not capable of piloting a spaceship properly. There had been some of the green crystal in the meteor rock that fell, but the material didn't make up the majority of it. An alien spaceship landing in stealth would have needed cover, and maybe the meteor rock cover had been a case of take-what-one-can-get.
But, in the case of the two adult alien menaces? Why had they dragged similarly poisonous material along in their spacecraft's wake? They could have easily maneuvered their ship to lose it, couldn't they? They certainly ought to have been more than capable of picking up asteroids from the belt outside Mars' orbit, if they'd truly needed or wanted a contrail of debris to follow them down. But they hadn't needed a distraction at the landing site when they were just planning on leaving their spaceship lying around, plain as day, and a heap of dead bodies and living survivors, suffering from only PTSD at best, as witnesses and messengers in their wake.
Are they idiots?
Clark wasn't.
Not really.
...Well, maybe for some things.
--But a lot of that could probably be blamed on upbringing and those inevitable biological differences in brain structure impacting his capacity for learning human-socialization skills and capability in deciphering social situations and cues. Not that he was completely inept, because he wasn't.
"So you found them?"
"What?" Lex said, looking up at her again.
"You found the two aliens, right? That's why you wanted to know about the meteor rock, about a weakness. So you can capture and kill them."
Lex's mouth went dry.
"Lex," she said soothingly, sitting on the edge of the desk next to him, "It's ok. I understand. They're dangerous killers and they have to be stopped. I'm not going to think badly of you for putting them down."
'Putting them down.' Like dogs. Rabid animals.
"Lana," he said slowly, licking his lips. "Lana, I haven't found them. They haven't surfaced since they disappeared after the second shower."
Lana looked at him. Then she said, with a deadly quiet, "You found more of them?"
Lex's skin prickled. "Lana, I--"
"There were more? But--" Her eyes widened, the pupils turning her eyes nearly black, only a shade of coloring of the irises showing. "Oh. The first one."
Lex suddenly had a very bad feeling.
"Where?"
"Lana?"
"Where are they?" she asked calmly. "I think I'd like to meet them." she said.
"Lana--"
"Lex, I know you'll think it's dangerous, but I think I ought to get a chance to meet the aliens who murdered my parents, don't you?" she said as calmly and pleasantly as if she were discussing the drink specials for the Talon that day.
Lex went still.
He gazed down at the woman he loved. Who sat next to him, full of hate and cold rage, with a hand raised to absently finger a necklace that she no longer wore. She was beautiful, and deadly, and horribly dangerous.
She hates Clark, and she doesn't even know it, Lex thought.
...Does he? Know it?
Lex should have been giddy. Instead, he felt despair.
Lex couldn't have her like this. Not when he was keeping Clark's alien nature a secret from her, and not while she might still harbor any feelings for Clark at all.
Clark couldn't have her like this, but hate wasn't the opposite of love, it was just love, twisted and tortured. The opposite of love was apathy. Until she felt apathy for Clark, Clark still had a chance. Still had her.
Clark probably wouldn't see it that way.
Clark loved her.
Had he found out Lana felt this way? Lana had said that Clark hadn't been open to her ideas on the Black Ship, hadn't wanted to talk about it, hadn't supported her need to know the truth.
Had Clark broken it off because she had finally said something that had tipped Clark off? Let him know that dark desire of hers, and he'd heeded the warnings he'd seen?
Lex didn't know.
And for the first time, Lex found himself unsure as to whether or not he wanted that type of knowledge.
Deep, dark, hidden. Foreboding. He should have been drawn to it, craving it.
Instead, he just felt even more ill.
"Lex, you promised me you wouldn't lie to me. You promised me no more secrets. Tell me."
Lex swallowed hard.
He looked her straight in the eye.
He said, "I don't know."
Lana stared straight back at him, like she was looking into her soul.
She said, "You're lying."
Lex said, "No, I'm not."
"TELL ME!" she shrieked, standing up and grabbing his shoulders, nails digging in. (He only realized later that she'd drawn blood.)
"I don't have proof! I am not going to set you on someone with only circumstantial evidence!" Lex yelled back, grabbing her hands and pulling them in front of her. She struggled, and he stood and held her still. "Lana, STOP!!!"
Lana's face was a ricktus of hate, a death-head's grimace. "You--! Let me GO!"
"Lana, listen to me!" He said desperately. "There were no -- no outright killings -- LISTEN TO ME! -- no outright killings after the first shower! It could have been an accident. It was probably an accident. No-one was running around hurting anyone, or has been running around killing anyone since. Not until these new aliens showed up. This may not be an invasion," he said quickly, trying to convince her, "this may be something else--"
"You don't know that!" Lana said heatedly.
"Lana, it doesn't make sense--"
"Those things were killing us!" Lana spat out.
"But it was just those two. You don't judge humanity by Adolf Hitler," Lex said desperately. "We shouldn't judge all of them by just those two."
"They were looking for Kalel. Their friend." Then she sucked in a startled breath, eyes widening further. "--That's him, isn't it? That's who you found!" she accused, twisting away from Lex and breaking free from his hold, backing up a step. "That's the one who's been looking down on everyone and playing games with people's lives and mutating us one by one for all these years, all this time, like we're some kind of lab rats," she hissed out.
Lex felt cold. "...That's not what's been happening, Lana. You know better than that; you're friends with Chloe--"
"Chloe doesn't want to hear it! Chloe says there's no such thing as aliens and laughs it off, and if she isn't looking, then of course she's not going to see it when she's purposefully blinding herself to the truth!"
Actually, now that Lex thought about it, that probably explained a lot about Clark and Chloe's relationship...
--Damnit, there was a town full of people outside that door and down that hallway, who could have heard the yelling and come close enough to overhear, and he didn't have time for this!
So Lex strode in close, physically aggressive in a way he almost never was, never let himself be except on rare occasions, and nearly bracketed her against the wall, looking down on her from his full height.
He recognized the beginnings of a feeling of betrayal at her outburst, at her unwillingness to listen and be reasonable and think, and he tried not to feed it; he forced it down and ruthlessly smothered it instead. The last thing he needed right now was to let her emotional reaction cloud his own judgment and reactions. Not in this. It was too important.
Anger, his constant companion, also flared. He tried to quash that, as well.
"Lana. I need you to listen to me very carefully. Do you understand?" he said calmly, though still barely holding down the anger.
She looked up at him, shaking slightly in anger and fear.
"Good. Now I need you to pay attention, because I mean every damn word, and I am only going to say this once."
Lex took a deep breath, and began.
"I do not want these aliens dead."
"I do not want these aliens afraid of me."
"I do not want them tortured."
"What I want from them, is information."
"I cannot get information from them if they are dead." Not what I need to know.
"I cannot trust information from them if they are so afraid of me, or in so much pain at the time, that they will say or do anything to make it stop. To feel safe again."
"I need to know exactly what is going on. Not just a best guess. Not just an intuitive leap. I need to know why they are here, what they want, what has happened, and what will happen, from the aliens themselves."
"I need to know how many there are on Earth, and whether each of them is for or against peacefully coexisting with humanity."
"I need to know how many there are off of Earth. I need to know how far away they are, how quickly they could get here under what circumstances, and what their plans are, as well."
"Now, let me be plain -- I cannot do that -- any of that -- if you are running around like a loose cannon seeking vengeance for your dead parents," he ground out, his jaw tight. "Because if you do that, they will know we are on to them. And while I have my suspicions and my intuitions right now as to what they want, if you go running around killing them, or even scaring and threatening them, I very much doubt that any of the survivors, or their human friends, will be very happy with you, and you yourself may begin through your actions a war between humanity and these aliens that might never have occurred otherwise and that we may not be able to win." ...Or stop, once it's started.
"If I cannot trust you to act rationally about this, to put aside your personal agenda and do what is right for the future of humanity, tell me now."
Lana looked up at his with an unreadable expression across her face. "I thought you said that the meteor rock... the radiation... that we can..."
"For that, I will need time, and it is no guarantee." He paused, then added. "I did not think to test the Black Ship against green meteor rock radiation extensively, but it did survive coming down in the middle of a rather dense bunch of the material, not much worse for wear. It might be more difficult than we think to breach the hull, and we don't know if the ships have built-in weaponry. If the aliens stay in their ships, or gather themselves some thick armor with radiation-shielding properties -- even thick steel plates lined with a quarter-inch thickness of lead -- that might be enough to spare them from any laser fire long enough to get close and destroy any defensive weaponry, before slaughtering those humans manning it. Make no mistake, Lana," he said grimly, "if there is a war, a lot more of us will die than them. I want to avoid a war if at all possible."
Lana looked on the verge of tears. Lex wanted to hold her gently, but he didn't dare. He had to be firm. If he coddled her now...
"Lana, please. I need you to be strong for me, in just this. I know you can do this. We can do this. But we need time to plan and to put things in place. ...Can I trust you in this?"
Lana looked at the floor and nodded once.
Lex put a finger under her chin and raised it. "Lana, can I trust you?"
"Yes," she whispered.
Lex looked deep into her eyes, and he believed her.
Thank god.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex had gotten out of the Talon with his mental state of well-being relatively intact, and for that he was grateful. and relieved. Very, very relieved.
...And I thought I was having a hard time coping.
So much for leaning on each other in diffficult times.
Well, maybe we'll get better at it. Relationships are a learning process...
Lex sighed as he took the steps up the front of the mansion. He was looking forward to kicking back and relaxing with a cup of hot cocoa for a little bit before heading over to the Kent farm. He had left the Talon quickly and hadn't had a chance to grab a cup of coffee on the way out. Not that I would've been able to stick around and take my time enjoying it if I had...
He had just made it in the door, and was hanging up his coat on the way to the kitchen, trying to decide on marshmallows or no marshmallows, when his phone went off again.
Oh, for god's sake, what now? he thought angrily as he pulled out his phone.
The message read that Lionel was at the head office of LuthorCorp. In his office.
...Damnitall to hell.
Lex told his butler to fire up the helicopter.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex gritted his teeth on the helicopter flight back.
Fucking bastard couldn't wait one day. Not one damn day.
What really got to him was that Lex really didn't want to be playing this 'game' with his father anymore. If anything, he felt he'd outgrown it, that it was a distraction.
I have better things to do. More important things to occupy my time.
Why was Lionel doing this? Persisting in doing this? Why was LuthorCorp so important to steal away? And why now?
...Because if Lex didn't have LuthorCorp, he wouldn't have the resources to fight the aliens off, if and when they invaded. He couldn't just toss rocks at them like a neanderthal and hope for the best.
Son of a bitch. I'm getting close. I knew it!
He'd thought he was light-years behind, but maybe he was closer than he thought.
I bet Kalel is the key to all this. If I can just subvert Clark...
First things first, though -- he was going to take care of securing LuthorCorp and then pick up the Kents. He'd worry about the rest in the morning.
~*~*~*~*~*~
...Goddamnit, he mentally cursed again as he hung up the phone.
That was the last bank, the last lending institution, on his list. And it had been a long list.
That bastard. That fucking bastard. Somehow Lionel had managed to scare, bribe, blackmail, or otherwise force every contact Lex had, and a few he'd tried to 'borrow', into avoiding touching LuthorCorp with a ten-foot pole. He literally could not get a loan to help finance a restructured capitalization to save his life, and nothing else he'd thought up as an in-house solution would work. He didn't have enough money to finance a forced buyback of the stock himself, either.
The only thing he cold do now was wait for the board meeting in the morning, when the takeover bid from the Apex Group would first be announced.
He held his head in his hands and groaned. This was going to be either a long, brutal battle, or a very short one.
At least he knew that none of the board members wanted to put a convicted felon back in charge of the company, let alone were willing to do so.
...Maybe he could use that as something. Could convicted felons act as the lead on a hostile takeover like this was going to be?
Probably not, but Lionel would just have the group appoint a figurehead for him to puppet to satisfy the letter of the law.
Lex felt a headache coming on.
Backstabbing bastard. God, there's nothing like family, is there?
...Well, he couldn't do any more tonight.
Then his phone rang.
Lex stared at it, then he snapped it up so fast he almost gave himself a concussion putting it to his ear.
"Hello!?"
"...Oh, hello to you, too, Mrs. Blanchard. Yes, I remember you from before."
"Oh, really?"
"Well, yes, thank you, I would like that very much. If you could please let her know? Thank you." With that, he hung up.
He leaned back in his chair and laughed weakly. It may not have been the development he was hoping for, but tonight he'd take just about anything.
It appeared that Mrs. Heddle was back from her bridge group, and her friendly neighbor had called Lex to let him know she'd passed along his wish to meet. And apparently Mrs. Heddle, who did not have a phone of her own because she didn't like it when her granddaughter tried to call her incessantly, had told her neighbor, Mrs. Blanchard that 'why yes, she would love to meet Lex Luthor to talk with him. Was he available now, and did he like tea?'
Lex smiled softly, and decided that a trip to one of Clark's neighbors would not be too out of the way before dropping by the farm to see what the Kents' decision was about staying at the mansion.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex has come for the tea, scones, and lack of phone access (he'd turned his off, so as not to disturb his host) and stayed for the jaw-dropping account of the night in question.
Well. That had certainly been enlightening.
Lex couldn't help but remember Lois' earlier (and somewhat logical under the circumstances) accusation, and Clark's natural response (as regarding the disposition of Luthors).
Really, I should have seen it coming. Hell, I should have guessed.
Why, oh why, did anything his father do surprise him anymore?
Lex thanked Mrs. Heddle profusely, got in his car, and made his way the short distance to the Kent farm.
~*~*~*~*~*~
It was late, but the Kents were both still up, and Lex found out, to his surprise, that while Martha was home, Clark was not. In fact, he'd been out almost all day.
He also found out, to his horror, that Mrs. Kent had been mugged in Suicide Slums earlier that afternoon.
Bastards, Lex thought. If Clark wasn't out after them with justice on his mind and Chloe on his six, Lex would be more than happy to do the deed himself.
He also wondered why Lana hadn't mentioned it earlier, because apparently it had been when she'd been checking in on Clark that Martha had returned from Metropolis.
He did find that, to his surprise, Clark had mentioned Lex's offer to Martha after Lana had left and before he'd taken off for the nearest Metropolis PD station. And Martha, in fact, was willing to take him up on the offer.
Since Clark wasn't answering his cellphone, they left him a note, and Lex helped Martha pack up her things. He offered to pack for Clark, but Martha had waved him off and done it herself.
He helped her get the bags out to the truck, and followed her over in his own car.
~*~*~*~*~*~
When they arrived at the mansion, Martha pulled up by the side entrance at the kitchen, and Lex didn't bother to correct her.
As she was chatting it up with the Cook and kitchen staff, and Lex was motioned off to the side by the butler, he was suddenly extremely grateful for that, in fact.
He didn't want his father to know Martha was even here, let alone staying, until Lex well after had thoroughly run him off, fired the staff members who had let him in, and made his instructions on Lionel's access to the grounds perfectly clear to the rest of his remaining staff and security personnel.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lionel was in the library, sitting on the couch, flanked by two of Lex's security personnel. A third stood at the side of the double doors, watching the room and other entryways and exits.
"I see you've already tried to move in," Lex began without preamble, approaching the couch as Lionel stood. "Don't you think that's a little premature, Dad? I mean, the board doesn't meet on the bid until the morning and -- hadn't you heard? -- the mansion is mine now, not just a perk of working at LuthorCorp as the CEO." Which was a white lie, being not quite true, but Lex would have the paperwork finished for that before tomorrow's meeting, so it was just as good as done. He hadn't wanted to risk having any problems with living arrangements for himself or the Kents with what had been brewing with LuthorCorp earlier that afternoon, so he had started the process as soon as the thought had occurred to him.
And he was going to let all his staff know that fact soon enough, so there would be no more confusion as to the true master of this house.
"I value efficiency, Lex. You know that. And I very much doubt you'll be able to afford the place on your new, readjusted salary," Lionel said with no small amount of smugness and amusement. "I hear you ran a hectic phone bank today. It must be humbling to pull all those strings and find out they're attached to nothing."
Lex waved the security staff out of the room. He didn't want anyone else hearing this.
"Yes, it was a bit disconcerting to discover. Especially when your father's the one holding the scissors."
"You left the company vulnerable."
"Then I suppose I should be thanking you," Lex said sarcastically. "I mean, if you hadn't tried to take it, someone else would have."
Lionel laughed. Laughed. "Exactly. What good is having a family if they don't watch out for each other, son?"
And that was the last straw.
"Well, dad," Lex drawled, turning to the alcohol cart and pouring himself a snifter of brandy. "On the off chance that unshakable family loyalty fails, there's always those Luthor closets to rummage through."
"All right, let's skip the prologue, Lex. What ancient skeleton do you think you've dug up this time?"
Lex turned back to face his father. "Well, it's not quite a skeleton yet. More like a freshly laid corpse."
And then the bastard had the audacity to laugh again. Lex, knowing what he knew, had to fight not to grip the glass so hard it cracked in his hand. Or shatter it against the wall.
So cooly, so casually that Lex felt disembodied from his own voice, Lex continued on. "I wonder how Martha Kent would feel if she knew you had a secret meeting with her husband right before he died. Now, a transgression like that would test the virtues of even the most forgiving woman."
Silence descended.
"...What do you want, Lex?"
"I hope you enjoyed your stay. Sorry it was so short."
Lex called his men back in from outside the room where they'd been waiting, and they filed in to flank Lionel.
Lionel turned to go, and Lex added, "Oh, and dad?"
"Yes, son?"
"Don't come back."
Lionel gave him a long, hard look, then nodded once, seeming almost pleased, and turned away.
And with that, Lionel was escorted out of the building by Lex's security staff.
Lex knocked back the two fingers of brandy, then two more, then gave up and grabbed the decanter, then laid down on the couch to wait up for Clark.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The fire was out when Lex started awake.
"Sorry, um, Mr. Henshaw said you wanted to see me when I came in?" a disembodied voice informed him.
Mr.--? Oh, the butler. "Yes, I did say that, Clark," Lex replied from his supine position laid out on the couch. Clark was barely a shadow in the dim moonlight.
"Lex?"
"Hm?"
"Are you drunk?"
"Only on power. And brandy. There was brandy, too. But not anymore," Lex smiled. "...Why do you ask?" Lex said smoothly, feeling grand.
No Lionel. A LuthorCorp out of danger (for now). A mansion all his own, free and clear. A Martha and a Clark to share his mansion, and a weakness in his aliens. Life was goooooooood.
"Uh, Lex? I'm going to help you get to bed now, ok?"
"Suuuure Clark, what-e-ver you want," Lex said singsong, swaying even as Clark helped him to his feet.
Clark steadied him under his arm and swept up his jacket-coat with a free hand.
Lex wasn't sure how he got to his room, but it might have involved stairs. Yes, definitely stairs.
He giggled as Clark got him into bed and helped him undress. Clark sighed a few times through the process.
"Where does this go?" Clark said. Lex turned his head to face Clark. Clark was holding his clothes.
"Mmmmm, anyplace-ish."
He closed his eyes and heard Clark rummage about setting things down.
Hm. He should drink brandy more often. And win. That, too. He felt great. So great. All floaty. Maybe he had floated up the stairs?
He heard a soft clatter as Clark took things out of pockets and put them on his dresser for him. Clatter-phone. Clatter-watch. Clatter-clang money-clip. Thud-wallet. Soft-thud--
"No. Not that one. Gimmie." Lex reached out blindly, grasping and flailing.
"What is it?" Clark said, sitting down on the bed and handing the packet to him.
"Secret." Lex closed his eyes and pulled the packet to his chest.
"...Secret?"
"Mmmhmm."
"Yeah?" Lex heard. "What kind of secret?"
"Mine. Yours."
"...Huh?"
"Hmm?"
"What kind of secret is mine and yours?"
Lex blinked open his eyes to a frowning Clark. Oh no. Frowning Clark was bad. Why not tell him? Then he wouldn't frown. "It's..."
Then it was Lex's turn to frown. "Uh..."
"You don't remember?"
"Nnnnnn-- yes. No. Sorry." Lex sighed. It was important, but new, and he was really feeling too great to worry about anything right now. But it had to do with Clark, and he vaguely remembered wanting to talk to him about it...
"Here," Lex said, thrusting the packet back at Clark.
"...Uh, Lex, are you sure?"
"Don't care. Tired." And Lex turned his face straight down into his comforter on his bed.
"Well, ok..." said Clark.
Lex felt a blanket laid over him lightly -- probably one of the ones from the foot of the bed -- and heard footsteps softly exiting the room and the door close.
That was the last thing he remembered before the morning.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Previous section located here.
AN2: You may notice that this Lex bears a passing resemblance to the Lex in "Spooky Stuff". (unfortunately?) I tend to have my favorite Lex-es that I like to play with, as you also may have noticed. Maybe I'll try an evil nasty self-centered one eventually (more like the one in "That Dark Black Heart"), but I doubt it'll be any time soon unless it's just a drabble -- I like SV!Lex over DCU!Lex for a reason :-P ;)
AN3: Transcripts used were from here.
AN4: ...I may still be a tad evil *g* (--but yes! More is coming! Though it may be awhile... *headdesk*) Next in the series 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: Previous section located here.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex sighed in frustration, leaned back in his chair, and scrubbed at his face with his hands.
God, how did I not see this coming?
...No, he knew. He knew exactly how. He had been distracted all day by the alien, and Clark, and alien-Clark, and the missing Black Ship, and even though he'd not spent much time ruminating on it during his work, it had been in the back of his mind all day, fragmenting his focus.
Three guesses behind the Chinese interest in LuthorCorp all of a sudden.
If Lionel wasn't behind this Apex Group, he'd eat his tie.
Damnit, damnit, damnit!
LuthorCorp stock had fallen after Lex's political loss, but things hadn't been really bad until the frantic trading that had been going on today. The overseas trading in the Asian market that had artificially pushed the stock price back upwards, but it was looking like someone was setting the stage for a buyout. Lex had sunk a good chunk of his own funds into his campaign, so he wouldn't have been able to buy up most of the outstanding stocks himself to gain a majority holding, or even stabilize the price, even if he had been aware of it earlier that day.
If LuthorCorp was approached with an offer, Lex knew the board would refuse -- they were his, now -- but knowing Lionel and his laundry list of contacts in the banking sector and the Federal Trade Commission, that meant Lionel would just move to making it a hostile takeover instead.
This was going to get ugly.
...And the markets were closed for the day in the US, so there was nothing he could do on his end. Not without stretching himself even thinner by transferring money into the overseas markets and risking overextending himself, at least. Infuriating.
He needed a break.
Lex pushed back his chair from his desk in the library and stood up, stretching. He glanced through his other, less urgent messages and saw one regarding that nosy neighbor who had witnessed the incident at the Kent farm. Apparently Mrs. Heddle was in and out quite a bit, and his investigator was going to try to contact her tomorrow morning.
Hm. Well, no reason to put it off, and he could certainly use a trip to the Talon for the leftovers of the day's coffee. Why not do it himself?
He decided to walk instead of drive.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex had missed the old woman himself -- having knocked on the door and seen no-one, and no car in the driveway.
A helpful neighbor had been happy to inform him, however, that she was off with her bridge group in Granville, and wouldn't be back until later that night. She also said that she'd be happy to let Mrs. Heddle know he was looking for her.
Lex sighed and thanked her, and made his way to the Talon for a much-needed, much-deserved caffeine boost.
He enjoyed the nighttime stroll, drinking in the cool air with a shiver as he pulled his coat closer about him.
But, as he walked up to the coffee house, he was startled to see Lana's car in the street. ...It should have been a pleasant surprise. He wasn't entirely sure why it wasn't.
Lex ducked into the alleyway to take the back entrance in, and nearly ran straight into Lana.
"Ah, Lana!"
"Lex," Lana smiled back.
"I saw your car out front. Looks like old habits die hard."
"Mrs. Kent asked me to close up for the night. They're going through a lot right now."
Lex nodded, a little tongue-tied for what to say. He hadn't really spoken to her since the aftermath of the car chase. They hadn't really discussed...
-- the kiss --
...his behavior.
"Lex, it's okay. You already said 'I'm sorry.' "
"Yeah, well, it means more when it's coming from someone who's not drunk," he grimaced self-deprecatingly. Then, because he was a glutton for punishment, he said, "It seemed you were pretty upset with Clark that night. Are things better?"
Lana shook her head sadly, and Lex held his breath. "None of that really matters anymore. I just want to be able to help him through this difficult time."
Lois' words about his panting after Lana hounded his mind, and he mentally cursed the Lane girl. If he did anything with Lana from this point onward, it was going to be slow and at her own pace, damnit. And she would have to come to him. Lex was not going to fight Clark for her; it would have to be her choice.
Lex would just have to make sure she knew he was the better choice, was all.
"How's he doing?" Lex wasn't about to pass up a second opinion. After all, he was horribly biased, and more than a bit distracted lately, seeing double-motives in everything.
"Lex, we both know what it's like to lose a parent. He's devastated."
Lex nodded. "Yeah, I-I actually ran into him at the Talon earlier today."
"You did?"
Lex nodded. "He seemed better after... well. He seemed better when I left..."
"When did you see him? Early afternoon?"
Lex nodded. "How did you...?"
"Lois told me you were looking for me. She didn't say Clark had been there."
Lex didn't quite smirk. "I'm not surprised. Lois seems to be uncomfortable even thinking about emotional displays."
"Oh."
Lex had the grace to wince. "He seemed to feel better afterwards, at least..." Lex shrugged, looking away. Great, tell the girl you want to marry and spend the rest of your life with that you made her ex-boyfriend cry. Nice going there, fool.
"Well, as much as we both want to help, I think all we can do is really just be there for him," Lana said slowly, touching his arm.
Lex took an unsteady breath. "He's, uh... he's very lucky to have you in his life, Lana. But when the time comes for you to lean on someone... you know I'm always here."
Lana smiled at him, and Lex tried not to feel too guilty about it.
"You know, Lex, it goes both ways."
"...Both ways?"
"I'm always here, too. If you need someone to lean on."
"Ah, thank you," Lex said, not quite sure what to say.
Lana smiled again, and Lex helped her with her boxes.
Once they'd gotten everything into the back office of the Talon, though, as Lex put the final box down on the office desk, Lana walked over to the door, then closed and locked it. Then she turned to face Lex, leaning her back against it.
If Lex had been a paranoid man, he would have wondered why Lana was effectively guarding the only exit out.
"So, Lex. Are you going to tell me why exactly you were looking for me today?"
Oh.
For some reason, Lex was having misgivings about blurting out everything he knew, suspected, and had recently discovered, to her. He couldn't imagine why.
"I've been thinking..." he dissembled, sliding his hands into his pants pockets.
"You tend to do that a lot," Lana smiled back.
Lex was glad he didn't blush easily. "It has... occurred to me recently that... --There is something I forgot to ask you earlier." He swallowed. "About the day of the alien invasion."
"Go on," Lana prompted, after a rather long silence.
"I don't really know how to say this Lana, so I'll just say it. You are the only person who had that much exposure to those two aliens and survived, which means you probably know more about them than anyone else on the planet, right now." He took a deep breath. "If there is anything that you can think of that might be considered a weakness--"
"Meteor rock."
"--then I need to --what??"
"The meteor rock. They're vulnerable to it."
Lex stared at her.
"How--?" Then he shook himself. "I thought that you-- Didn't you say that you had been knocked unconscious? That you hadn't been the one to subdue or stop them?"
"I didn't." Lana sighed, then smiled at him self-deprecatingly. "When I told them to follow me to the mansion because Kalel was there, I tricked them into opening the large room-sized wall safe in the mansion's library, by the windows. The male grabbed the edge of the door and pulled it open, and collapsed, but I guess the female wasn't close enough to be affected right away, because she pulled the other alien away and slammed the door back shut."
"How close were they?"
"A few feet away."
The radiation. It had to be the radiation. "When you say 'collapsed', what do you mean by that, 'collapsed'?" Lex said, striding towards her and taking her by the arms. He only remembered to be gentle at the very last.
Lana gasped slightly, but said, "I mean he sort of... folded over. Like he was in pain. He looked sick. He couldn't move, really."
"And the female?"
"Looked sick, was moving more slowly. Once she closed the door, they got better almost immediately, though," Lana warned him.
Lex felt shell-shocked. He staggered backwards and sat down on the desk, hard.
"...Lex?"
But Lex was caught up in a maelstrom of memories. Clark. The Scarecrow of 2001. The necklace around his neck -- green meteor rock. How ill, how pale he'd looked, strung up there like that. How much better he'd looked off the makeshift cross, not nearly so pale. Looking down and finding the meteor rock left behind. The lead box with the necklace in it, how Clark had flinched away from Lex until Lex had snapped it shut. How uncertain Clark had looked approaching him after that. How skittish and... confused. How Clark had handled the box. How he'd stared at it.
"Green meteor rock?" Lex asked.
"Yes."
Lex closed his eyes.
"You're sure?"
"Yes, Lex." She sounded a little irritated.
Something slowly bubbled up from the rest of the screaming mess howling through his mind. "How did you know?"
"What?"
"How did you know that they were vulnerable to the meteor rock? You 'tricked them into it.' That implies you knew when you told them to open the safe. How did you know?"
"Lionel told me."
Lex looked up at her, hands braced on the edge of the table. He didn't have to look at his knuckles to know they were white. "When?"
"Earlier that day. He was scratching... things... into the floor. There was something wrong with his eyes."
So, after he'd been affected by the third Stone of Power. After the the Crystal of Water had burned its way through his body and onto the floor. "Go on, Lana. What did he say, specifically? Do you remember?"
"He said, 'The disciples of Zod. They must be stopped. Their home is their only poison.' "
"Zod..." Another name? A person, or a place? ...Wait. "--Their home?!"
Lana nodded.
"And you thought that meant the meteor rocks?"
"Well, they're space rocks, and the aliens are from space. Why not?"
"...Why not." Lex echoed weakly, staring right through her. Wasn't she taking a class in astronomy? Didn't she understand...?
"Lex, what's wrong?"
"Lana," he said, feeling pained, getting a horrible feeling about the whole thing. "If their home was those rocks, and it poisons them..."
Lana gave him a frowning look. Oh, she just wasn't getting it.
"Lana, people can't live in a place that is poison to them, and those meteor rocks were tiny when compared to most celestial objects. If that was their home, or part of what used to be their home... planet..."
"You think that might be all of them?"
"...Would that we were so lucky," Lex murmured, passing a hand across his face. More strongly: "Lana, those aliens obviously came from a space-faring civilization. If they'd had any warning at all of a catastrophe, I don't doubt that they would've evacuated their entire planet. That ship was more than likely a small scouting vessel."
Lana's eyes grew wide and terrrified. "Oh, god," she whispered, bringing her hands to her mouth.
"No, Lana," Lex moved to reassure her, reaching out and touching her forearms, rubbing his thumbs against them. "It's ok. That weakness -- the meteor rocks--"
"But there's not that much of it. Not nearly enough to go around, to protect the entire planet! Not and make it reach--"
"Lana, its the radiation that's important, I'm sure of it. We can characterize it, duplicate it. My research labs have already done some work in this regard, for other projects, like alternative fuels. I can just... shift the funding around a bit to make it higher priority. Once we have that knowledge, we can create lasers, for space defense. These aliens may move fast, but I doubt that they can move faster than light," he smiled.
His own tension dissolved as Lana began to relax. "We'll be safe, you'll see. God--" he laughed. "We can win this." We can win this! The aliens had a weakness that was easily exploitable... and could be used to differentiate them from the common human populace. They could do this. They could really do this. All they needed to do was get the technology together, bump the space program up a few years by sinking his R&D budget into the private space sector, get some space stations, defense satellites, and regular spaceships patrols into orbit, and they'd see a threat coming, be able to meet them head-on. The alien invasion wouldn't know what hit them-- some things you couldn't defend against, and while those ships might be equipped with radiation shields for long-duration trips that might be able to withstand a powerful laser of coherent energy, a green-meteor-rock-enhanced nuclear bomb going off in space nearby would get through any defense, no matter how sophisticated their battle plan might be--
...Wait.
That didn't sound right.
Why would a race of conquering alien warlords bring with them something that their enemy could use to destroy them?
Lex could sort of see it happening by accident in Clark's -- Kalel's -- case. Clark had just been a little kid during the first meteor shower, and probably not capable of piloting a spaceship properly. There had been some of the green crystal in the meteor rock that fell, but the material didn't make up the majority of it. An alien spaceship landing in stealth would have needed cover, and maybe the meteor rock cover had been a case of take-what-one-can-get.
But, in the case of the two adult alien menaces? Why had they dragged similarly poisonous material along in their spacecraft's wake? They could have easily maneuvered their ship to lose it, couldn't they? They certainly ought to have been more than capable of picking up asteroids from the belt outside Mars' orbit, if they'd truly needed or wanted a contrail of debris to follow them down. But they hadn't needed a distraction at the landing site when they were just planning on leaving their spaceship lying around, plain as day, and a heap of dead bodies and living survivors, suffering from only PTSD at best, as witnesses and messengers in their wake.
Are they idiots?
Clark wasn't.
Not really.
...Well, maybe for some things.
--But a lot of that could probably be blamed on upbringing and those inevitable biological differences in brain structure impacting his capacity for learning human-socialization skills and capability in deciphering social situations and cues. Not that he was completely inept, because he wasn't.
"So you found them?"
"What?" Lex said, looking up at her again.
"You found the two aliens, right? That's why you wanted to know about the meteor rock, about a weakness. So you can capture and kill them."
Lex's mouth went dry.
"Lex," she said soothingly, sitting on the edge of the desk next to him, "It's ok. I understand. They're dangerous killers and they have to be stopped. I'm not going to think badly of you for putting them down."
'Putting them down.' Like dogs. Rabid animals.
"Lana," he said slowly, licking his lips. "Lana, I haven't found them. They haven't surfaced since they disappeared after the second shower."
Lana looked at him. Then she said, with a deadly quiet, "You found more of them?"
Lex's skin prickled. "Lana, I--"
"There were more? But--" Her eyes widened, the pupils turning her eyes nearly black, only a shade of coloring of the irises showing. "Oh. The first one."
Lex suddenly had a very bad feeling.
"Where?"
"Lana?"
"Where are they?" she asked calmly. "I think I'd like to meet them." she said.
"Lana--"
"Lex, I know you'll think it's dangerous, but I think I ought to get a chance to meet the aliens who murdered my parents, don't you?" she said as calmly and pleasantly as if she were discussing the drink specials for the Talon that day.
Lex went still.
He gazed down at the woman he loved. Who sat next to him, full of hate and cold rage, with a hand raised to absently finger a necklace that she no longer wore. She was beautiful, and deadly, and horribly dangerous.
She hates Clark, and she doesn't even know it, Lex thought.
...Does he? Know it?
Lex should have been giddy. Instead, he felt despair.
Lex couldn't have her like this. Not when he was keeping Clark's alien nature a secret from her, and not while she might still harbor any feelings for Clark at all.
Clark couldn't have her like this, but hate wasn't the opposite of love, it was just love, twisted and tortured. The opposite of love was apathy. Until she felt apathy for Clark, Clark still had a chance. Still had her.
Clark probably wouldn't see it that way.
Clark loved her.
Had he found out Lana felt this way? Lana had said that Clark hadn't been open to her ideas on the Black Ship, hadn't wanted to talk about it, hadn't supported her need to know the truth.
Had Clark broken it off because she had finally said something that had tipped Clark off? Let him know that dark desire of hers, and he'd heeded the warnings he'd seen?
Lex didn't know.
And for the first time, Lex found himself unsure as to whether or not he wanted that type of knowledge.
Deep, dark, hidden. Foreboding. He should have been drawn to it, craving it.
Instead, he just felt even more ill.
"Lex, you promised me you wouldn't lie to me. You promised me no more secrets. Tell me."
Lex swallowed hard.
He looked her straight in the eye.
He said, "I don't know."
Lana stared straight back at him, like she was looking into her soul.
She said, "You're lying."
Lex said, "No, I'm not."
"TELL ME!" she shrieked, standing up and grabbing his shoulders, nails digging in. (He only realized later that she'd drawn blood.)
"I don't have proof! I am not going to set you on someone with only circumstantial evidence!" Lex yelled back, grabbing her hands and pulling them in front of her. She struggled, and he stood and held her still. "Lana, STOP!!!"
Lana's face was a ricktus of hate, a death-head's grimace. "You--! Let me GO!"
"Lana, listen to me!" He said desperately. "There were no -- no outright killings -- LISTEN TO ME! -- no outright killings after the first shower! It could have been an accident. It was probably an accident. No-one was running around hurting anyone, or has been running around killing anyone since. Not until these new aliens showed up. This may not be an invasion," he said quickly, trying to convince her, "this may be something else--"
"You don't know that!" Lana said heatedly.
"Lana, it doesn't make sense--"
"Those things were killing us!" Lana spat out.
"But it was just those two. You don't judge humanity by Adolf Hitler," Lex said desperately. "We shouldn't judge all of them by just those two."
"They were looking for Kalel. Their friend." Then she sucked in a startled breath, eyes widening further. "--That's him, isn't it? That's who you found!" she accused, twisting away from Lex and breaking free from his hold, backing up a step. "That's the one who's been looking down on everyone and playing games with people's lives and mutating us one by one for all these years, all this time, like we're some kind of lab rats," she hissed out.
Lex felt cold. "...That's not what's been happening, Lana. You know better than that; you're friends with Chloe--"
"Chloe doesn't want to hear it! Chloe says there's no such thing as aliens and laughs it off, and if she isn't looking, then of course she's not going to see it when she's purposefully blinding herself to the truth!"
Actually, now that Lex thought about it, that probably explained a lot about Clark and Chloe's relationship...
--Damnit, there was a town full of people outside that door and down that hallway, who could have heard the yelling and come close enough to overhear, and he didn't have time for this!
So Lex strode in close, physically aggressive in a way he almost never was, never let himself be except on rare occasions, and nearly bracketed her against the wall, looking down on her from his full height.
He recognized the beginnings of a feeling of betrayal at her outburst, at her unwillingness to listen and be reasonable and think, and he tried not to feed it; he forced it down and ruthlessly smothered it instead. The last thing he needed right now was to let her emotional reaction cloud his own judgment and reactions. Not in this. It was too important.
Anger, his constant companion, also flared. He tried to quash that, as well.
"Lana. I need you to listen to me very carefully. Do you understand?" he said calmly, though still barely holding down the anger.
She looked up at him, shaking slightly in anger and fear.
"Good. Now I need you to pay attention, because I mean every damn word, and I am only going to say this once."
Lex took a deep breath, and began.
"I do not want these aliens dead."
"I do not want these aliens afraid of me."
"I do not want them tortured."
"What I want from them, is information."
"I cannot get information from them if they are dead." Not what I need to know.
"I cannot trust information from them if they are so afraid of me, or in so much pain at the time, that they will say or do anything to make it stop. To feel safe again."
"I need to know exactly what is going on. Not just a best guess. Not just an intuitive leap. I need to know why they are here, what they want, what has happened, and what will happen, from the aliens themselves."
"I need to know how many there are on Earth, and whether each of them is for or against peacefully coexisting with humanity."
"I need to know how many there are off of Earth. I need to know how far away they are, how quickly they could get here under what circumstances, and what their plans are, as well."
"Now, let me be plain -- I cannot do that -- any of that -- if you are running around like a loose cannon seeking vengeance for your dead parents," he ground out, his jaw tight. "Because if you do that, they will know we are on to them. And while I have my suspicions and my intuitions right now as to what they want, if you go running around killing them, or even scaring and threatening them, I very much doubt that any of the survivors, or their human friends, will be very happy with you, and you yourself may begin through your actions a war between humanity and these aliens that might never have occurred otherwise and that we may not be able to win." ...Or stop, once it's started.
"If I cannot trust you to act rationally about this, to put aside your personal agenda and do what is right for the future of humanity, tell me now."
Lana looked up at his with an unreadable expression across her face. "I thought you said that the meteor rock... the radiation... that we can..."
"For that, I will need time, and it is no guarantee." He paused, then added. "I did not think to test the Black Ship against green meteor rock radiation extensively, but it did survive coming down in the middle of a rather dense bunch of the material, not much worse for wear. It might be more difficult than we think to breach the hull, and we don't know if the ships have built-in weaponry. If the aliens stay in their ships, or gather themselves some thick armor with radiation-shielding properties -- even thick steel plates lined with a quarter-inch thickness of lead -- that might be enough to spare them from any laser fire long enough to get close and destroy any defensive weaponry, before slaughtering those humans manning it. Make no mistake, Lana," he said grimly, "if there is a war, a lot more of us will die than them. I want to avoid a war if at all possible."
Lana looked on the verge of tears. Lex wanted to hold her gently, but he didn't dare. He had to be firm. If he coddled her now...
"Lana, please. I need you to be strong for me, in just this. I know you can do this. We can do this. But we need time to plan and to put things in place. ...Can I trust you in this?"
Lana looked at the floor and nodded once.
Lex put a finger under her chin and raised it. "Lana, can I trust you?"
"Yes," she whispered.
Lex looked deep into her eyes, and he believed her.
Thank god.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex had gotten out of the Talon with his mental state of well-being relatively intact, and for that he was grateful. and relieved. Very, very relieved.
...And I thought I was having a hard time coping.
So much for leaning on each other in diffficult times.
Well, maybe we'll get better at it. Relationships are a learning process...
Lex sighed as he took the steps up the front of the mansion. He was looking forward to kicking back and relaxing with a cup of hot cocoa for a little bit before heading over to the Kent farm. He had left the Talon quickly and hadn't had a chance to grab a cup of coffee on the way out. Not that I would've been able to stick around and take my time enjoying it if I had...
He had just made it in the door, and was hanging up his coat on the way to the kitchen, trying to decide on marshmallows or no marshmallows, when his phone went off again.
Oh, for god's sake, what now? he thought angrily as he pulled out his phone.
The message read that Lionel was at the head office of LuthorCorp. In his office.
...Damnitall to hell.
Lex told his butler to fire up the helicopter.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex gritted his teeth on the helicopter flight back.
Fucking bastard couldn't wait one day. Not one damn day.
What really got to him was that Lex really didn't want to be playing this 'game' with his father anymore. If anything, he felt he'd outgrown it, that it was a distraction.
I have better things to do. More important things to occupy my time.
Why was Lionel doing this? Persisting in doing this? Why was LuthorCorp so important to steal away? And why now?
...Because if Lex didn't have LuthorCorp, he wouldn't have the resources to fight the aliens off, if and when they invaded. He couldn't just toss rocks at them like a neanderthal and hope for the best.
Son of a bitch. I'm getting close. I knew it!
He'd thought he was light-years behind, but maybe he was closer than he thought.
I bet Kalel is the key to all this. If I can just subvert Clark...
First things first, though -- he was going to take care of securing LuthorCorp and then pick up the Kents. He'd worry about the rest in the morning.
~*~*~*~*~*~
...Goddamnit, he mentally cursed again as he hung up the phone.
That was the last bank, the last lending institution, on his list. And it had been a long list.
That bastard. That fucking bastard. Somehow Lionel had managed to scare, bribe, blackmail, or otherwise force every contact Lex had, and a few he'd tried to 'borrow', into avoiding touching LuthorCorp with a ten-foot pole. He literally could not get a loan to help finance a restructured capitalization to save his life, and nothing else he'd thought up as an in-house solution would work. He didn't have enough money to finance a forced buyback of the stock himself, either.
The only thing he cold do now was wait for the board meeting in the morning, when the takeover bid from the Apex Group would first be announced.
He held his head in his hands and groaned. This was going to be either a long, brutal battle, or a very short one.
At least he knew that none of the board members wanted to put a convicted felon back in charge of the company, let alone were willing to do so.
...Maybe he could use that as something. Could convicted felons act as the lead on a hostile takeover like this was going to be?
Probably not, but Lionel would just have the group appoint a figurehead for him to puppet to satisfy the letter of the law.
Lex felt a headache coming on.
Backstabbing bastard. God, there's nothing like family, is there?
...Well, he couldn't do any more tonight.
Then his phone rang.
Lex stared at it, then he snapped it up so fast he almost gave himself a concussion putting it to his ear.
"Hello!?"
"...Oh, hello to you, too, Mrs. Blanchard. Yes, I remember you from before."
"Oh, really?"
"Well, yes, thank you, I would like that very much. If you could please let her know? Thank you." With that, he hung up.
He leaned back in his chair and laughed weakly. It may not have been the development he was hoping for, but tonight he'd take just about anything.
It appeared that Mrs. Heddle was back from her bridge group, and her friendly neighbor had called Lex to let him know she'd passed along his wish to meet. And apparently Mrs. Heddle, who did not have a phone of her own because she didn't like it when her granddaughter tried to call her incessantly, had told her neighbor, Mrs. Blanchard that 'why yes, she would love to meet Lex Luthor to talk with him. Was he available now, and did he like tea?'
Lex smiled softly, and decided that a trip to one of Clark's neighbors would not be too out of the way before dropping by the farm to see what the Kents' decision was about staying at the mansion.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lex has come for the tea, scones, and lack of phone access (he'd turned his off, so as not to disturb his host) and stayed for the jaw-dropping account of the night in question.
Well. That had certainly been enlightening.
Lex couldn't help but remember Lois' earlier (and somewhat logical under the circumstances) accusation, and Clark's natural response (as regarding the disposition of Luthors).
Really, I should have seen it coming. Hell, I should have guessed.
Why, oh why, did anything his father do surprise him anymore?
Lex thanked Mrs. Heddle profusely, got in his car, and made his way the short distance to the Kent farm.
~*~*~*~*~*~
It was late, but the Kents were both still up, and Lex found out, to his surprise, that while Martha was home, Clark was not. In fact, he'd been out almost all day.
He also found out, to his horror, that Mrs. Kent had been mugged in Suicide Slums earlier that afternoon.
Bastards, Lex thought. If Clark wasn't out after them with justice on his mind and Chloe on his six, Lex would be more than happy to do the deed himself.
He also wondered why Lana hadn't mentioned it earlier, because apparently it had been when she'd been checking in on Clark that Martha had returned from Metropolis.
He did find that, to his surprise, Clark had mentioned Lex's offer to Martha after Lana had left and before he'd taken off for the nearest Metropolis PD station. And Martha, in fact, was willing to take him up on the offer.
Since Clark wasn't answering his cellphone, they left him a note, and Lex helped Martha pack up her things. He offered to pack for Clark, but Martha had waved him off and done it herself.
He helped her get the bags out to the truck, and followed her over in his own car.
~*~*~*~*~*~
When they arrived at the mansion, Martha pulled up by the side entrance at the kitchen, and Lex didn't bother to correct her.
As she was chatting it up with the Cook and kitchen staff, and Lex was motioned off to the side by the butler, he was suddenly extremely grateful for that, in fact.
He didn't want his father to know Martha was even here, let alone staying, until Lex well after had thoroughly run him off, fired the staff members who had let him in, and made his instructions on Lionel's access to the grounds perfectly clear to the rest of his remaining staff and security personnel.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Lionel was in the library, sitting on the couch, flanked by two of Lex's security personnel. A third stood at the side of the double doors, watching the room and other entryways and exits.
"I see you've already tried to move in," Lex began without preamble, approaching the couch as Lionel stood. "Don't you think that's a little premature, Dad? I mean, the board doesn't meet on the bid until the morning and -- hadn't you heard? -- the mansion is mine now, not just a perk of working at LuthorCorp as the CEO." Which was a white lie, being not quite true, but Lex would have the paperwork finished for that before tomorrow's meeting, so it was just as good as done. He hadn't wanted to risk having any problems with living arrangements for himself or the Kents with what had been brewing with LuthorCorp earlier that afternoon, so he had started the process as soon as the thought had occurred to him.
And he was going to let all his staff know that fact soon enough, so there would be no more confusion as to the true master of this house.
"I value efficiency, Lex. You know that. And I very much doubt you'll be able to afford the place on your new, readjusted salary," Lionel said with no small amount of smugness and amusement. "I hear you ran a hectic phone bank today. It must be humbling to pull all those strings and find out they're attached to nothing."
Lex waved the security staff out of the room. He didn't want anyone else hearing this.
"Yes, it was a bit disconcerting to discover. Especially when your father's the one holding the scissors."
"You left the company vulnerable."
"Then I suppose I should be thanking you," Lex said sarcastically. "I mean, if you hadn't tried to take it, someone else would have."
Lionel laughed. Laughed. "Exactly. What good is having a family if they don't watch out for each other, son?"
And that was the last straw.
"Well, dad," Lex drawled, turning to the alcohol cart and pouring himself a snifter of brandy. "On the off chance that unshakable family loyalty fails, there's always those Luthor closets to rummage through."
"All right, let's skip the prologue, Lex. What ancient skeleton do you think you've dug up this time?"
Lex turned back to face his father. "Well, it's not quite a skeleton yet. More like a freshly laid corpse."
And then the bastard had the audacity to laugh again. Lex, knowing what he knew, had to fight not to grip the glass so hard it cracked in his hand. Or shatter it against the wall.
So cooly, so casually that Lex felt disembodied from his own voice, Lex continued on. "I wonder how Martha Kent would feel if she knew you had a secret meeting with her husband right before he died. Now, a transgression like that would test the virtues of even the most forgiving woman."
Silence descended.
"...What do you want, Lex?"
"I hope you enjoyed your stay. Sorry it was so short."
Lex called his men back in from outside the room where they'd been waiting, and they filed in to flank Lionel.
Lionel turned to go, and Lex added, "Oh, and dad?"
"Yes, son?"
"Don't come back."
Lionel gave him a long, hard look, then nodded once, seeming almost pleased, and turned away.
And with that, Lionel was escorted out of the building by Lex's security staff.
Lex knocked back the two fingers of brandy, then two more, then gave up and grabbed the decanter, then laid down on the couch to wait up for Clark.
~*~*~*~*~*~
The fire was out when Lex started awake.
"Sorry, um, Mr. Henshaw said you wanted to see me when I came in?" a disembodied voice informed him.
Mr.--? Oh, the butler. "Yes, I did say that, Clark," Lex replied from his supine position laid out on the couch. Clark was barely a shadow in the dim moonlight.
"Lex?"
"Hm?"
"Are you drunk?"
"Only on power. And brandy. There was brandy, too. But not anymore," Lex smiled. "...Why do you ask?" Lex said smoothly, feeling grand.
No Lionel. A LuthorCorp out of danger (for now). A mansion all his own, free and clear. A Martha and a Clark to share his mansion, and a weakness in his aliens. Life was goooooooood.
"Uh, Lex? I'm going to help you get to bed now, ok?"
"Suuuure Clark, what-e-ver you want," Lex said singsong, swaying even as Clark helped him to his feet.
Clark steadied him under his arm and swept up his jacket-coat with a free hand.
Lex wasn't sure how he got to his room, but it might have involved stairs. Yes, definitely stairs.
He giggled as Clark got him into bed and helped him undress. Clark sighed a few times through the process.
"Where does this go?" Clark said. Lex turned his head to face Clark. Clark was holding his clothes.
"Mmmmm, anyplace-ish."
He closed his eyes and heard Clark rummage about setting things down.
Hm. He should drink brandy more often. And win. That, too. He felt great. So great. All floaty. Maybe he had floated up the stairs?
He heard a soft clatter as Clark took things out of pockets and put them on his dresser for him. Clatter-phone. Clatter-watch. Clatter-clang money-clip. Thud-wallet. Soft-thud--
"No. Not that one. Gimmie." Lex reached out blindly, grasping and flailing.
"What is it?" Clark said, sitting down on the bed and handing the packet to him.
"Secret." Lex closed his eyes and pulled the packet to his chest.
"...Secret?"
"Mmmhmm."
"Yeah?" Lex heard. "What kind of secret?"
"Mine. Yours."
"...Huh?"
"Hmm?"
"What kind of secret is mine and yours?"
Lex blinked open his eyes to a frowning Clark. Oh no. Frowning Clark was bad. Why not tell him? Then he wouldn't frown. "It's..."
Then it was Lex's turn to frown. "Uh..."
"You don't remember?"
"Nnnnnn-- yes. No. Sorry." Lex sighed. It was important, but new, and he was really feeling too great to worry about anything right now. But it had to do with Clark, and he vaguely remembered wanting to talk to him about it...
"Here," Lex said, thrusting the packet back at Clark.
"...Uh, Lex, are you sure?"
"Don't care. Tired." And Lex turned his face straight down into his comforter on his bed.
"Well, ok..." said Clark.
Lex felt a blanket laid over him lightly -- probably one of the ones from the foot of the bed -- and heard footsteps softly exiting the room and the door close.
That was the last thing he remembered before the morning.
~*~*~*~*~*~
Previous section located here.
AN2: You may notice that this Lex bears a passing resemblance to the Lex in "Spooky Stuff". (unfortunately?) I tend to have my favorite Lex-es that I like to play with, as you also may have noticed. Maybe I'll try an evil nasty self-centered one eventually (more like the one in "That Dark Black Heart"), but I doubt it'll be any time soon unless it's just a drabble -- I like SV!Lex over DCU!Lex for a reason :-P ;)
AN3: Transcripts used were from here.
AN4: ...I may still be a tad evil *g* (--but yes! More is coming! Though it may be awhile... *headdesk*) Next in the series here.