FIC: Must Be Dreaming
Thanks to everyone who's stuck with us so far. Lex'll have that baby one of these days :D
And thanks to herohunter for the quick beta.
Title: Must Be Dreaming
Series/WIP: Sequel to So Much Dreaming
Pairing: Clex!
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After being abducted by aliens and discovering that Jonathan Kent is alive, Lex must come to grips with his shifting relationship with Clark and an unexpected pregnancy.
Spoilers: Through S5, after Cyborg.
Warnings: mpreg, character death
Chapter One ♥ Chapter Two ♥ Chapter Three ♥ Chapter Four ♥ Chapter 5.1 ♥ Chapter 5.2 ♥ Chapter Six ♥ Chapter Seven ♥ Chapter Eight ♥ Chapter Nine ♥ Chapter Ten ♥ Chapter Eleven ♥ Chapter Twelve ♥ Chapter Thirteen ♥ Chapter Fourteen ♥ Chapter Fifteen ♥ Chapter Sixteen ♥ Chapter Seventeen ♥ Part Eighteen
Part Nineteen
The warm late August evening hung around the Kent farm, calm like the disingenuous clouds before a twister. Inside the kitchen, Martha checked on her pot roast one more time, then moved to the dish of mashed potatoes to be sure that they were creamy enough. It had been awhile since she'd really cooked like this, and with a sigh, she remembered how calming it could be.
It wasn't as though they hadn't met Lex before. They just hadn't met him in this capacity, as Clark's… boyfriend. The thought did make her a bit nervous. Possibly because they'd never had to work for Lex's good will before; it had always come rather freely. Martha had never even seen him really angry, not while he was in his right mind, until that morning he'd come to pick up Lena and Maddie.
Now there was no question that the burden of diplomacy was on Martha's shoulders. She stirred the vegetables and added a little more seasoning. When she heard the sound of a car driving up the dirt road, she made sure all the pans were turned to low and removed her apron.
"I'll go meet them, Jonathan!" she called into the other room.
"Good. Almost done straightening up in here!" he called back.
She nodded to herself and left out the screen door. Spotting the car, she hurried around the veranda to greet the boys, only stopping as she saw Clark jog around the car to Lex's door. Well, that was sweet of him, Martha thought. He opened the door and reached in for Lex, giving him a hand and support out of the car.
At that point, Martha frowned worriedly. Clark must have been glossing over Lex's condition. She started walking towards them again.
"Clark," she called. "I'm glad you both could make it."
"Wouldn't miss it for anything," Clark said and turned them to face her. His arm draped around Lex's shoulders, keeping the older man close to him.
"The roast is ready…" Martha trailed off, feeling her face flush as she stared at Lex. It had been a while since she'd seen the man, true, but it hadn't been that long, had it? He had gained so much weight, but that wasn't expected or possible when he'd been a captive for over a month. Was it? Her brain seemed to reach a conclusion before she had the sense to dismiss it. It was mostly how the weight was settled on his front, how the shirt he was wearing tugged around the bulge of his abdomen. Too familiar.
"Oh my God, Lex," she muttered before looking up at his face.
Lex seemed flushed himself and turned to Clark, who pressed a kiss to Lex's forehead. An action that did nothing to lessen the redness of Lex's cheeks and ears.
"Evening, Mrs. Kent," Lex said.
"Is that… How? Are you pregnant?" Martha sputtered.
Lex's brows twitched upward, and he shrugged his head to the side. "Seem to be."
"Well, this explains the sickness!" she exclaimed.
Clark squeezed Lex's shoulders and then kissed his cheek. "Yeah, it does."
Before Lex could protest, Martha had wrapped the boy up in a hug and kissed his cheek as well. "Come inside, please."
"All right," Lex replied a little stiffly.
Well, this must be awkward for him, Martha guessed. She took his hand, giving it a squeeze before she turned back to the house. Jonathan opened the front door to greet them, and gave the boys a big smile.
"Good to see you both," he said warmly. Clark got a big hug, and Jonathan offered Lex a handshake, which he seemed more than satisfied with. Jonathan gave Lex an appraising look. "You feeling alright these days?"
"Not too bad," Lex answered.
"Jonathan, he's…" Martha looked to the boys quickly.
"It's, uh, okay," Lex said hesitantly.
Bless his heart, Martha thought. She hugged her husband from the side and looked up to him. "Look at them, Jonathan. Lex is pregnant."
Jonathan looked skeptical for a moment, but then his head craned far to the right and he blinked a few times. "Huh."
Clark laughed and rubbed Lex's back. The boys must've been nervous.
"I'm sorry, did you two want to break the news?" Martha asked. She hoped she hadn't ruined their evening already.
"Oh, God, no," Lex replied automatically. "I'm just happy I didn't have to find a way to say it."
"How… Clark said you've only been together for a little while," Jonathan said, crossing his arms and frowning.
"That's um," Clark looked at Lex.
"It was Milton Fine," Lex said.
"Ohhhh." Jonathan nodded.
"But the baby's mine," Clark interjected.
"Oh!" Martha smiled.
"Thankfully," Lex added.
Jonathan scratched his head, looked back at the kitchen, and then back at the boys. "Why don't we take this to the kitchen? You boys are probably hungry, and Martha's been cooking all afternoon."
"Don't exaggerate," Martha scolded, as she followed him.
Clark remained by Lex's side and moved into the kitchen with them. Martha noted how he helped Lex into a chair and rubbed his back gently as Lex looked back at him. She brought the roast to the table, and soon the four of them settled into their meal amiably.
"Thank goodness they got you back," Martha said as she passed the mashed potatoes.
Jonathan, who was carving the roast, shook his head. "Everyone was worried about you, son. Now I know why they were so concerned."
"I’m doing all right now. It wasn't pleasant, no, but I've checked out well with my doctor, and believe me, everyone at the castle has been very supportive." Lex speared some vegetables. "I wouldn't worry about me too much."
"I don't know that I could do that, knowing…" Martha forced herself not to stare at Lex. It was rude, and the boys felt uncomfortable enough. But seeing that tummy so round, and with their grandchild, no less… "Do you know if it's a girl or a boy?" she asked abruptly.
Lex pinched his mouth to the side then took a drink of his milk to swallow. "A girl."
"Aw, a girl?" Martha cooed, putting her hands over her mouth. Jonathan laughed at her. "Oh, hush."
"Easy to make her happy," Jonathan teased. He looked at the boys. "Don't be so nervous. We're all family here."
At Jonathan's words, Lex's shoulders seemed to go loose, and the corners of Clark's mouth stretched as wide as they would go.
***
“You sure you aren’t pregnant again?”
Lena pursed her lips and swiveled her head around to give her mother a sharp look. There was something at once comforting and insufferable about going home. She’d always felt guilty for feeling that way, because she loved her mother, of course. But the woman drove her to distraction sometimes.
“Don’t be offensed, Mi’ja.” Gloria Luciano walked up beside Lena, who had been trying to take care of the dishes, and patted her stomach. “You just can’t seem to get rid of that belly, hm?”
Offensed, Lena repeated in her mind. Really? “My belly is fine.” She gently took her mother’s wrist and moved her hand away. “I told you, I don’t want to get pregnant again, and I’m not seeing anyone.”
“Oh, you’ll change your mind,” Gloria said with certainty.
Lena’s throat tightened. “I don’t know why you don’t think I don’t know my own mind. I’m just not ready to think about that. Not even nearly almost ready to think about that.”
“You’re not getting any younger.”
“I’m turning thirty this year. That’s hardly an old maid.”
Gloria shrugged and went to make another pot of coffee.
For the past few days, Lena had been attempting to bring up Lionel Luthor. She needed to talk to someone about it, and frankly, she wasn’t sure she wanted other members of the community to know. One thing she could count on her mother for was discretion. Gloria talked to everyone whose ear she could bend, about almost anything, but Lena knew that she hadn’t told any of her friends that her daughter was bisexual. The woman had a sense of propriety instilled in her from hard-kept old values based in weekly trips to the dilapidated Cathedral seven blocks away, and probably from her own parents. Her grandparents had always seemed like nice people. She’d been closer with Papi than Grandmama, but they’d both died when she was young, and she had actually spent more time with their friend Nan than either of her grandparents, and it seemed sometimes, her own mother.
But Lena couldn’t fault the woman for having to work. She could fault her father for spending so much time in prison, but she’d come to peace with that. He was not a bad man, just one who made bad choices in situations where he had felt that he had none. Nana Nan really had picked up the slack in raising Lena. Scrubbing rice off what should have been a soup plate, Lena reflected that may have been why she and her mother were so fundamentally opposed, at times.
It also could have been that Lena was essentially Gloria’s rape child, and if not visiting her mother enough produced some guilt, this realization completely dwarfed the feeling. Lena had wondered before if she were quite the daughter her mother had wanted, but given their Catholic beliefs and how strictly Gloria had lectured her daughter against choosing abortion when she’d found out that Marcus had gotten her pregnant before leaving town (even though Lena had never been the one to bring it up), now Lena was afraid that her mother hadn’t wanted a daughter at all. She was afraid that her mother had suffered more for having her.
It was very strange to regret your own existence.
“Mama, I think we need to talk.” Lena sighed as she started to put the dishes away.
“If this is about dating Maureena again, you know how I feel about that. Baby, she’s just not right for you,” Gloria urged. The prickly protective sensations coming off of her were almost amusing.
“I’m not dating Maureena again.”
“Or Marcus?” Oh, that made the protectiveness grow even stronger.
“Definitely not Marcus. He only gets one shot to make puppies with me.” Lena pressed her palms onto the counter and watched her mother sitting down to the table with her tea. “I want to talk about Lionel Luthor.”
Gloria made a scoffing noise, but anxiety danced throughout her veins, as though she might get up and flee at any moment. “God takes us all in His time. Although with some He takes His sweet time, I suppose.”
“I know.” Lena drew some hair behind her ear and approached the table. “I know he’s my real father, Mama.”
“What are you talking about?” Gloria looked up crossly from her tea. “Have something to eat, Elena. Don’t you eat anymore?”
Lena frowned at her mother trying to feed her after commenting about her weight. Luciano women. Ever the contradiction. “Mama, I know. I had to give Lex Luthor blood. We know that he’s my brother. I know, I just...” Lena touched her temple as red anger almost overwhelmed her.
“Lionel Luthor is not your father. Leo Luciano is your father. He held my hand in the delivery room-”
“Mama, please-”
“He changed your poopy diapers, put bandaids on your knee, and he protected you fiercely,” Gloria said sternly, her hands shaking on her teacup. “Leo was your father.”
Lena turned her head to the window and blinked back tears. She couldn’t do this to her mother. Not even for closure. Her fingers carded through the back of her hair, and she nodded. “Okay. I understand, Mama.”
Just as Lena was about to leave the kitchen, her mother spoke again: “God will never give you more than you can handle. You may not always understand why, but you take it anyway. He gave me you, and He must have had his reasons for giving such a gifted child to me.”
Pausing at the doorframe, Lena turned to look at her mother, who was stirring her tea again. Rage, vulnerability grief, regret, guilt guilt guilt...
“God knows that I wasn’t equipped to handle you on my own, but I did my best. You are my child, and Leo’s child, and His child. Maybe you were Mama and Papi’s child, too, and Nana’s. But Lionel Luthor has no part of you.” Gloria turned her head and gave Lena a hard look. “No part, do you understand? We are your family. We are your sangre. Not him.”
“I’m sorry.” Lena’s fingers brushed against her lips.
“Are you going back to Smallville? With that Lex person?”
“Not immediately. His boyfriend is looking after him right now.” Lena wanted to come closer to her mother again, but Gloria felt betrayed by Lena bringing up Lionel. “I’ll be here for a few more days.”
“And then you’re leaving again. To go live with him.”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“It’s your life.” Gloria took her tea to the sink.
Lena shuddered. Trust Mama to go from hot to cold so fast. “Mama, there’s more. There’s someone I’m going to want you to meet.”
“Why do you need my approval? You never have before.” Gloria waved your hand. “You spend all of your time with this rich white kid, and you never come home anymore.”
“He’s needed me,” Lena argued. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to block Gloria out a little bit. It was just too much to deal with while talking to her about such sensitive things.
“He can pay people for whatever you’re doing.”
Lena threw up her hands. “No, he can’t, Mama. He needs family. He needs people to care about him who he doesn’t have to pay to do it. And especially now, he needs it.”
“Pray on your choices, Mi’ja. That is all I can tell you. Pray, and God will tell you the right path.”
Lena could feel her mother beginning to shut her out in return, and she couldn’t say that it didn’t hurt that she couldn’t talk to her about this. She couldn’t bring up Lex without admitting what she knew about Lionel, and she couldn’t explain her absence without bringing up Lex. She could only hope that her mother forgave her for continuing to see him. “God isn’t going to tell me not to love my brother. He gave me a connection to Lex, one that I felt before I even knew. It was inevitable that we meet and become friends.”
“Fine. But I don’t want to hear about him,” Gloria snapped.
“You’ll have to, if you want to know your granddaughter.”
Gloria paused, and hope reopened her heart. “You said you weren’t pregnant again!”
“No. I found a little girl, gifted like me, and Lex is going to help me get the adoption approved.”
“Adoption? Dios mio, Elena! Why didn’t you say something sooner? Where is she?”
“She’s safe with Lex. He convinced the authorities to let her into his custody. She’s special, and she’s sensitive. So sensitive.” Lena held out one hand and spread her fingers, motioning generally to the house. “I couldn’t bring her here. Not with things unsaid and below the surface. Maddie would sense the tension, and when she is upset, she can’t control her gifts.”
Lena dipped her chin and twisted her fingers. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to try for another baby, Mama, and I’m sorry if that hurts you. I just don’t know. The way I feel right now, I just can’t think about it. But my gifts can help Maddie, and she’s already been through so much. I’d like for her to know you, but if it hurts you too much, I can’t bring her here.”
“Why would her adoption hurt me?” Gloria demanded. “How old is she?”
“She’s eleven. Sort of quiet. Very good with art, and so sweet.” Lena smiled, thinking of Maddie. It hurt a little to be away from the girl. “Her mother died when she was three, and she went into the foster system because her father was in Belle Reve.”
“He’s crazy? Goodness.”
“No. They put people with gifts in Belle Reve, if they catch them. Maddie would end up there eventually, without help.” Lena took a tentative step toward her mother. “She needs me. I can keep her calm, and she trusts me. She doesn’t normally trust women, because one of her foster mothers hurt her.”
“Oh. And you think you can’t bring her here because of that?” Gloria drew nearer, touching her lips with the tips of her fingers.
“I’m afraid she’ll lose control. I can use my gifts to make her be calm. But I do not want to do that to her unless I have to.” Lena put her hands in the back of her pockets. “It’s not right.”
Gloria came up to Lena and wrapped her arms around her tall daughter. “You are a good woman.”
“You want me to bring her by.”
“Si. I would love to see my granddaughter.”
Lena let out a long, tense breath. Maybe she could soften her old family to her new one after all.
***
"Can I help you?" Mercy looked up from the laptop where she had been reviewing LuthorCorp's final death throws. Soon it would only be LexCorp, and good riddance to any taint remaining from Lionel’s reign. She arched a brow sharply and was mildly surprised to see Dr. Tanaka enter the study.
"It is unlikely," Tanaka said as she approached the desk. She removed her glasses and stared coldly at Mercy, who cocked her head to the side and took her feet down from where they'd been perched on the desktop.
Mercy stood quickly and scanned Tanaka's countenance. The woman was different than she had been the last time Mercy had spoken with her. Perhaps not different, so much as unguarded. The ambiguity had been dropped, and there was nothing but a cold will as unflinching as tempered steel.
"What are you doing here, Tanaka?" Mercy asked.
Tanaka tilted her head back and regarded the taller woman through slit eyes. "I know this is a question you have been pondering for some time," she answered after a moment. She began to circle around Mercy. "I wonder how that is working out for you."
Mercy clenched her jaw and kept her eyes on Tanaka, who was circling her like a predator. Mercy Graves was no one's prey. "I think I have a guess. Is it time to call?"
Tanaka paused. "Call whom?"
"It's a poker phrase." Mercy stopped turning and let Tanaka drift to the very corner of her peripheral vision. She stared hard at the bookcase in her direct line of sight. "It means you lay down all your cards, show your hand."
"An interesting ex-"
Mercy whipped around with all of her speed and strength, delivering a roundhouse kick to Tanaka's head. She jumped backward once the blow had landed, a little off target, unfortunately, in anticipation of Tanaka's response. Mercy wasn't disappointed, and two metallic tendrils shot forward, one catching her in the side.
Wasting no time, Mercy shot forward, grabbed Tanaka's arm to keep it out of the way, and punched her in the face. Immediately, the woman's already black eyes grew blacker, the darkness flooding through the whites of her eyes. Then the color twitched, filled with white lines, then went black again.
"Bad… time-" Tanaka pulled away, her head jerking from side to side, and then tendrils burst through skin and surrounded Mercy. "-to show your hand…"
Mercy didn't wait; she flipped another kick to Tanaka's ribs. Feeling the cold metal pierce her flesh, she stumbled back, gratified to note that Tanaka was doing the same.
"Isis didn't raise us as fools," Mercy murmured as she felt to the hard, stone floor.
Tanaka was still twitching. "One loss doesn't amount to much in the middle of all of this. Not to me. There are always copies. There are always copies."
When the tendrils rose again, Mercy struggled to get up, but found herself too injured to move quickly. Her eyes closed briefly as she chastised herself for failing to move in on Tanaka sooner.
The familiar click of heels caused Mercy's eyes to pop open again, and she saw Chloe in front of her, holding her hand up to Tanaka, fingers splayed wide and glowing. Mercy couldn't make out what either was saying, but the tendrils went limp, and Tanaka fell to the floor, twitching and writhing and babbling gibberish.
Chloe dropped down to Mercy's side, slipped her arm under Mercy’s, and moved backward rapidly.
“What’d you do?” Mercy managed, pushing herself to her feet. She made sure to drag the door to the study shut before they headed down the hall.
“I turned it off. That’s about all I can manage against something like that. Alien technology is a little out of my league!”
“Will she be able to turn herself back on?” Mercy asked. She pressed her free hand to her bleeding abdomen and frowned irritably at the wound.
“I look at that thing like a virus, and a good virus will reboot the system on its own to keep doing damage.”
“What’s a good virus?”
Chloe pulled out her cell phone as they headed for the door. “Domovoi! You need to get everyone out of the mansion, now!”
***
Although disappointed that they had been unable to find a metahuman to help with the process, Domovoi was grateful that the evacuation plan seemed to be going off without a hitch. He darted down the hall, knowing that Mr. Luthor and would want Maddie taken care of personally, and all the other staff had already begun to pour out of the castle.
No time for pleasantries, Domovoi opened the door to the girl’s room and rushed in. “Miss, we must leave now. Take my hand.”
He reached out for Maddie, who turned from where she was standing by her bookcase. Then she vanished.
Domovoi blinked. Then again. He ran a hand through his gray-speckled hair. Letting his eyes fall closed for a moment, he mentally scanned the room for Maddie’s psionic signature. He should have been able to sense her there without even trying; her abilities were still fresh and largely untrained.
Still, nothing.
He took a breath and assessed his options. He needed to update Ms. Sullivan on the situation at hand, and then he would personally scour the grounds for their lost ward.
***
Clark was rubbing Lex’s back dotingly, and Lex’s head jerked up and he looked around where he was sitting beside Clark on the couch. The Kents seemed amused, rather than offended, by Lex’s sudden drowsiness. He’d determined anything that reminded them of their approaching grandchild was endearing to them, or so their expressions led him to believe.
“Pardon me,” he said, returning their smiles and touching the side of his face. He couldn’t have dozed off for more than a moment.
“Oh, sweetheart, there’s nothing to apologize for. Of course you’re going to get tired,” Martha assured him.
“I suppose it’s the way of things. You’ve looked tuckered almost every time I’ve seen you lately. Though you look better now,” Jonathan observed.
“Clark makes me nap. As well as Mercy, Chloe, Lena, Maddie, Romie, Rujuko... And Tanaka. I’m surrounded by women, and they’ve ganged up on me.” Lex smirked slightly at the thought.
Martha smiled. “Well, I’m glad they have. Are you two ready for some pie?”
“Sure!” Clark said as Lex shook his head. Clark chuckled and rubbed Lex’s shoulder. “Okay, maybe in a bit.”
Lex yawned again and blinked a few times. He needed to stay awake. It was rude to fall asleep on his hosts.
“If you want to go lay down in Clark’s room, Lex, that would be fine,” Jonathan said. “Don’t feel like you’ve gotta entertain us.”
“No, I’m fine. I’m just full, and warm, thanks to your radiator son.”
Clark laughed out loud. “I thought you liked that!”
“I do, most of the time.” Lex sighed and laid his head on Clark’s shoulder. He could tell that their affection made the Kents both a little tense, Martha less than Jonathan since she was so giddy over the prospect of a baby, but they were doing their best not to stare at them or react negatively. Lex could appreciate the diplomatic efforts they were making.
“My little girl’s sapping your energy,” Clark surmised. He kissed Lex’s temple and rubbed Lex’s belly gently. The action did nothing to relieve Lex’s sleepiness, but Clark couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t keep from touching Lex in general, and he especially couldn’t resist gluing his hands to Lex’s belly whenever they were near each other.
“It’s past her bedtime. Mm.” Lex closed his eyes. “We’ve been thinking of getting a place in Metropolis. I meant to mention it earlier.”
“You decided on a place?” Clark asked, sounding concerned.
“Yes, I decided where I’m moving myself and your child without showing you the place or consulting you at all.” Lex opened one eye to squint at Clark.
Clark rolled his eyes.
“It was inevitable, I guess,” Martha said, sounding dismayed. “How far into Metropolis?”
“Either we’ll build something-- I’m thinking of adding a tower for LexCorp employee apartments-- or we could use the old Luthor Manor on the outskirts of the city. It has plenty of room,” Lex explained. He scratched the side of his head. “We’d visit often, though.”
“Oh, I know you will. Or Martha will be getting Clark to give her a ride to Metropolis.” Jonathan sat back. “I don’t blame you for the move. Metropolis was always your city.”
“As odd as it sounds, it feels like Smallville is more dangerous than Metropolis. It’s out of the way, but there are far more meteor rocks lingering here, and while everything at the castle is organic, purified, that’s not true for the whole town. I’d worry about our daughter’s safety if we spent too much time here with her.”
“It does seem like Smallville’s changed over the years. The meteor rocks were always there when Clark was growing up, but we didn’t have near as many mutants. I mean, metahumans,” Jonathan corrected quickly.
“They were around. Or some of them were. Alicia always had her powers, for example,” Clark put in.
“Could have to do with the levels of the radiation, or the time it takes the radiation to affect a person’s brain,” Lex suggested. “Metahumans can tend to go unnoticed, until someone does something criminal.”
“In either case, I’d worry less about Lex and the baby if they were in the city.” Clark shrugged his head to the side. “That’s where I’ll be, when I’m studying and working.”
“If you moved to Metropolis, it’s two hours away. Hardly a complete cutting of ties,” Martha said. Jonathan squeezed her shoulders.
Lex’s eyes popped wide open, and he sat up straighter. He could feel his daughter shifting, and kicking him in the ribs as she did so. He put his hands his sides and took a few deep breaths. Soon Clark’s hands covered his and Lex could feel Clark’s lips on the back of his neck.
“You okay? You went pale.”
Lex looked up to see concern all over the Kents’ face. “I’m fine. She just moved a little sharply. That’s all.”
Martha’s smile seemed to stretch impossibly wide. “Oh.”
“Lex is a tough cookie. He can take it,” Clark said proudly.
Lex turned his face toward Clark. He was wide awake now, but still so warm. He’d never envisioned this scenario. Not even in his wildest of dreams could he have imagined dinner at the Kent Farm, in Clark’s arms, accepted as part of the family. It was almost too much.
Clark’s hand was quick to discreetly wipe a tear from under Lex’s eye as he moved to cup his cheek. He studied Lex’s eyes for a moment to see if he was unhappy, then gave his lips a quick kiss.
“So we were wondering if you wanted to update my room into a nursery,” Clark said, taking up the slack. “Since I’ll be with Lex and the baby, wherever they are.”
“You- You’re moving out.” Martha’s hands covered her knees. “Oh, well of course you...”
She got up and moved over to give her son a hug. “It’s just a surprise. And no, we aren’t going to convert your room. We might clean it and put in a bigger bed for when you visit. We can change the guest room into a nursery.”
“I thought you might be thinkin’ of that, given the situation,” Jonathan said.
“Things change so quickly around here,” Martha mused softly.
“I was surprised he didn’t go away to college sooner,” Jonathan disagreed. “Though like you said, Metropolis isn’t too far. Even if it weren’t, he could zip over in five minutes. You both still need to come over for dinner once a week. Change is good. Change is fine. But we should do our best to keep the family together. We’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years, and one of them, I think, had to do with you not being able to know your grandparents.”
“That was his call, too,” Clark argued.
“Well, I’d certainly like for this child to have contact with one set of his grandparents, and this one would have been preferred anyway,” Lex interjected.
Clark chuckled at that. “Yeah, otherwise she’ll be meeting zombies.”
“Hm.” Lex felt his phone ringing and pulled it out to see who would be calling him during the middle of the important night with the ‘in-laws.’ “It’s Chloe. Hold on, this is probably important. She wouldn’t have interrupted without reason.”
The Kents exchanged a look as Lex answered, “Yes, Chloe?”
“Lex, oh, God, I’m so sorry. We’re at Smallville Medical Center-”
“Hold on. What is it, Chloe? Are you all right? Who’s at the Medical Center? I thought you were in Metropolis hunting down leads on Lana.”
“Who? No, I came back right after work to work on something with Mercy.” Chloe paused and rattled off some information. Sounded like a nurse. “She should have told you. I should have figured it out.”
“Then tell me now, Chloe.”
“Tanaka was infected by Milton Fine. Maybe since you got back. Maybe the whole time she’s been working with you.”
Chloe continued with the details, but Lex couldn’t seem to hear anything. He stared fixatedly at the coffee table until he shook his head and cut her off. “Chloe that’s impossible. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be her. You must be mistaken.”
“I... Lex, I saw it with my own eyes. When he came after Mercy-”
“It... It’s in Mercy??” Lex felt Clark’s arms tighten around him.
“No, he attacked Mercy. She was the only one who knew. I’m guessing he just wanted to get her out of the way so he could keep studying you.”
“Tanaka...”
”I must say, I am eager to expand my research with a willing participant.”
”I don’t have a good bedside manner.”
“Tanaka...”
Dr. Tanaka squirted some goop on her hands and unceremoniously inserted her finger up his ass. Lex winced. Her eyes rolled to the ceiling as her other hand came up and began gently prodding his belly.
"I advise you once again to keep your condition concealed. We hardly want outside interference in this process."
“When you were abducted, whoever took you changed you insides.” She slid another finger in, then it felt tight and… very strange. It was all Lex could do to keep from screaming at her or fleeing from the bed.
“Good news,” she said, sucking in her cheeks slightly. She didn’t look at all happy. “Though the circumstances are less than what one would desire.”
Lex didn’t notice as the phone dropped from his hand. He bent over, curling his arms around his belly and closing his eyes tightly.
Not that he was about to start that argument with Tanaka again. Talking to her was about as useful as shouting at your computer.
“Lex!”
“She would never... never... not when Lena was around...”
Tanaka made a swift exit, after telling Rujuko to put the equipment away. Then Lena entered and sat on the bed with Lex.
Something was being wrapped around him. Someone was rocking him. He couldn’t stop shaking.
Lex rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and tried to distance himself from the examination. He didn't like them before being abducted, and he liked them even less now. Tanaka's cold fingers seemed to trigger a body memory of being underground, pawed by Lionel's nosy doctors, and sometimes of being somewhere else, on a table with Brainiac touching him ever so disinterestedly with his inhuman hands.
“Lex, please. God, Mom, what do I do?”
“Give me the phone. Jonathan, get a glass of cold water and mix a little sugar in it.”
Emerging from a fathomless darkness, Lex opened his eyes to lights that seemed preternaturally bright, even for what appeared to be an operating room.
“Where... Where am I?” he tried to say, although he heard no sound come out.
His vision was blurred, and all he could make out were several men in white coats, all of the same size and shape. After blinking a few times, he could tell that they all seemed to have the same color hair. But his vision was still gluey. He wished it would clear.
Lex couldn’t move much. He wondered idly if he’d been in another car wreck. Taken another bullet to the chest? It seemed like these days everyone wanted to kill him. He was sure in most cases it wasn’t warranted. Maybe not all, but most.
“Do not let him heal.”
“His heart rate has increased.”
“The neural blocker is working. Continue.”
“Could someone please tell me what’s happened?” Lex tried again. Again, no sound. Nothing. They continued to work, ignoring him completely.
For what felt like twenty minutes, at least, Lex sluggishly looked around himself, trying to focus long enough to make sense out of the shapes and colors that he saw. If he were in surgery, of course he’d have anesthetic, but this felt different. It felt like... he was detached from his body.
Then his vision came into focus, and he looked down.
“What the hell are you doing to me?” his silent protest went unheeded. All that signaled his distress was the monitor for his heart, beeping beeping beeping oh so quickly.
His abdomen was completely split open, organs exposed.
“Continue mapping the tissue,” one of the men in a coat said.
Lex looked on him in shock. He recognized this man. In fact, he recognized them all, since they were all the same man.
Milton Fine.
“Let me out of here!” he mentally railed. Now he felt the words caught at the back of his throat. “Let me go you sick son of a bitch!”
Slowly, one of them turned its head and smiled slightly, ever so amused at the discontent of its specimen.
“The neural blocker is working. Continue mapping the tissues.”
“The artificial organ needs more blood.”
“Transferring.”
Alarmed at the sight of what appeared to be no less than five Milton Fines, Lex tried to struggle against whatever bonds held him, but it was futile. Utterly futile.
His breaths were quick. Short and panicked. The body he could not feel reacted to his distress without him. One of the copies that had been watching his lungs then leaned over him, its garishly severe face looming ever closer. It slid a finger slick from Lex’s own bodily fluids along his jaw, and its teeth, uncannily white and sharp, flashed before him.
Then it pressed its lips to his own and watched Lex’s wide, helpless eyes as its tongue slipped into his mouth.
“Do not let him heal.”
It straightened up, gave Lex another sadistic smirk, then frowned down at his vivisected abdomen. In a swift motion, the scalpel made another slice at the collarbone and the pelvis.
“Continue.”
“The tissue is integrating acceptably.”
“Prepare the embryo.”
“It should be implanted at another time.”
“The blood loss is too great for optimal fertilization.”
“Agreed. Continue.”
With an effort, Lex kept his eyes open. It would only be worse to be blind, not knowing what they were doing. In that moment, he wished, very, very sincerely, that whatever they were doing would kill him, and he wouldn’t have to endure this paralytic hell a moment longer.
“Do not let him heal.”
Lex could almost feel his lips move. Though it might have been his imagination, because his plea was silent:
“Clark.”
“Clark. Clark.”
“I’m here, Lex. I’m here, okay? Christ. I’m here.”
Lex blinked and felt his body shaking, despite the blanket and arms wrapped around it. “Never gonna leave us alone,” he whispered in an unsteady, hoarse voice.
“What? No, I won’t.” Clark pressed a kiss to Lex’s forehead and petted his hand down the back of his head several times. “Lex, I’m here. I’m here.”
“I- I know. I just... Tanaka. She...”
“Lex?!” Clark tilted his head back and looked into Lex’s eyes. He gave Lex a gentle squeeze. “God, you scared me. I know about Tanaka. Chloe filled us in. You’re safe here. I’ve got you.”
Lex shook his head. “No, no... It’s not...”
“It’s gonna be okay,” Clark said confidently. He took a glass of water from his mother tried to press it to Lex’s lips. “Just drink this slowly. It’s gonna be okay.”
Lex pulled back, curling his lips over his teeth and shouted, “It’s not going to be okay, Clark! It’s not going to be okay! That thing will never leave us alone! Do you understand that? It will stalk us for the rest of our lives, and it’s all my fault.”
Clark held the glass dumbly for a moment, then looked to his parents.
“It isn’t your fault, Lex,” Martha intervened. “You can’t ever let yourself think that. If anything, it’s ours, for keeping you in the dark about all of this.”
“Milton Fine wouldn’t be here if It weren’t for me,” Clark said guiltily.
“No, you don’t know that,” Lex argued. He touched his head, still dazed and uncertain if any of the words coming out of his mouth made sense together. “But I do know I flashed myself on its radar seven months ago, bright and shiny like a damn beacon. I found Tanaka, not the other way around. This is all my fault.” He shook his head again and then let it drop into his hands. “And it will never let us be. It’ll come for her. No matter how many times we find it, it’ll make more copies, and it will take my daughter.”
“You found Tanaka because you were pregn-”
“I found Tanaka because I wanted a baby.” Lex went silent momentarily and suppressed a sob. Everything he did fell apart. “I wanted someone to love. I wanted a baby. That was before Fine took me in his ship. He had likely already possessed her. She saw my blood type. She found out I would be a good specimen. I brought this on myself, and now you as well.”
“You wanted a child,” Martha repeated softly.
Clark crouched down to Lex’s level and put his hands on the side of Lex’s face. “Please stop blaming yourself. It-”
“It is not okay. Please stop saying so. It... It fucking killed my father! It killed my nephew, and it almost killed Lena.” Lex met Clark’s eye, but tears were blurring his vision. “All because I’m a selfish idiot.”
“You are not. Please. As if the worst thing anyone ever did was want someone to love,” Clark scoffed. “Plenty of people go to crazy lengths to get a baby. Some women steal babies, or cut them out of other women. Others spend millions on in-vitro, or they grab a kid from another county. Plenty of people do stupid things to get a child, every day. Don’t be dumb.”
Lex frowned slightly. “I’m not an idiot, but I’m dumb?”
“You’re wonderful. Idly considering finding a way to have a child doesn’t make you selfish or an idiot. Don’t you think it would be great to be able to tell her that you wanted her?” Clark tried a hopeful sideways smile. Lex stared back at Clark, his brows creased and fretful. Then Clark pinched Lex’s lower lip playfully. “It helps me to know my parents wanted me. Even not knowing if my biological parents really wanted me... really hurt. Until I found out they didn’t want to let me go. She’s wanted, Lex. That’s all.”
Clark leaned forward to rub Lex’s back. “And Fine already had me in his crosshairs. Remember? Tried to kill my mom. Separated me from you.”
“You’re wonderful. I’m still scared. And I still put myself out there for it to see.”
“So you’d be happier if she didn’t exist at all.”
“Of course not,” Lex admonished, looking at Clark sharply.
“Because you want her. And you love her. You loved her way before you were even sure she wasn’t an alien chestburster. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you a good dad. It makes you loving, and even if your father didn’t get it, that’s not a bad thing.” Clark pressed their foreheads together. “Fine just took advantage you being loving. Just like he took advantage of Lionel being arrogant, and he took advantage of me being, well, gullible. He knew you wouldn’t abort her because you wanted a child to love, and he gave you one.”
“I hate being played,” Lex groaned.
“Your heart is still racing. Drink your water,” Clark ordered. He looked up. “Mom?”
“Here you go, sweetheart.” Martha crouched beside them as Clark pressed the glass to Lex’s lips once more. “You should stay here tonight. With Clark, hm?”
Lex swallowed the slightly sweetened water and wondered what this remedy was supposed to do for him. He felt another strong hand on his back and looked up to see Jonathan’s concerned face frowning down at him.
Good God, they all want to take care of me. Of us.
“What was Chloe saying? About Mercy? Is she all right?” Lex asked hoarsely.
“I don’t think you should be worrying about that,” Jonathan said. “You just had a... episode or something.”
“Flashback. I had a flashback.” Lex closed his eyes. He wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the phenomenon. Clark curled up closer to him and rubbed his back again.
“They took Mercy to the ER,” Martha answered quietly. “They don’t know her status yet, but Tanaka was injured, and Chloe said she called for an evacuation of the castle.”
“That’s good.” After a long silence, Lex opened his eyes to see the Kents exchanging a look between one another. “What? Did they not all get out?”
Another silence. Lex was afraid to push, given how unstable he’d just proven himself to be.
“Domovoi stayed behind to look for Maddie,” Jonathan said finally.
Lex felt his insides clench. “Maddie is still there?”
“Lex, please. You need to try to stay calm,” Clark said gently. “Okay? Try to stay calm. For her.”
One deep breath, then two. “Can you go get her?”
“I don’t really want to leave you right now,” Clark admitted.
“I have your mother and father right here. Fine doesn’t want to abduct me again right now. It just wants to watch me. If I can keep myself from getting triggered again, I should be fine.” Lex pressed his lips flat and looked into Clark’s eyes.
Clark was worrying his teeth over his lips when Lex’s phone rang again. “Christ.”
“Clark, language.” Martha rolled her eyes.
“I can swear if I want.”
“Not around the baby you won’t,” Martha said, picking up the phone. “It’s Lena.”
A collective breath seemed to be released.
“She felt what happened. Wants to know I’m okay.” Lex reached for the phone. “Lenie, I’m all right. Hang on, okay?”
He looked at Clark again. Clark sighed. “Go lay down while you talk to your sister, okay? Stay calm. Breathe deep. Let her do her soothing thing she does. Don’t think about Tanaka or Fine.”
“Promise.” Lex nodded. “Thank you, Clark.”
Clark gave Lex a lingering kiss, then leaned over and kissed his belly gently. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Mom?”
“We’ll make sure he gets upstairs okay. It’ll be fine. We just need to keep things calm for a little bit,” Martha said, looking on Lex warmly.
Reluctantly, Clark stood, squeezing Lex’s hand. Then he gave Lex and his parents a nod, and disappeared.
***
Rujuko’s eyes lazily opened, then closed again. She felt a crick in her neck that was fairly familiar, and she looked down to see, to her embarrassment, that she’d drooled all over her notebook.
“You are working too hard, Ruji,” she said in a stiff, cold voice. As she straightened up and stretched, she lowered her voice and opened her mouth wide, letting her vowels elongate more. “It appears that you have a double life, Rujuko. You know they say the ancient figure Alexander the Great had a similar problem. Related to war elephants. Let me tell you all about that.”
She giggled to herself, then bit her lip and wondered how Lex was feeling. Even though her dad was a lot more open, Lex still reminded her a lot of her dad. Her dad cared. He cared about everyone around him, and he was warm, with big arms that wrapped around you like nothing else.
The way Lex was with Maddie, or how he tried to be-- It was like seeing her dad in the bald man’s face. It didn’t hurt that her father had used the technology he’d been working on with Tanaka to create a child for himself, and even though Lex hadn’t planned this, he seemed to have some fatherly instinct in him. She was there, watching, when she saw him see the ultrasound for the first time. When in the midst of his anguish, his eyes set upon the figure of a little developing baby and he fell in love.
She did everything she could to make this surprise pregnancy bearable for him, even if Tanaka didn’t care when he was miserable. Sometimes... she kind of wished Lex and Lena would grab her and play with her the way they did Maddie.
But Rujuko knew she was too old for that stuff, and she didn’t, couldn’t, look at anyone with big doe eyes that made them want to take care of her. Somehow despite all of her efforts, she’d inherited her mother’s inability to express on the outside what she was feeling on the inside, and she hated it. She hated that part of herself. She giggled when she was annoyed. When she wanted to smile and giggle, she froze and went monotone. When she wanted to cry, she got angry and snapped at people. It was all messed up and wrong, and she was all messed up and awkward. She could have sworn she was better at all this stuff when her dad was around. Or maybe he just knew how to read her. She didn’t know. All she knew was that sometimes being a ‘genius’ didn’t get you very far, if you couldn’t interact with human beings properly. No wonder Tanaka had given up trying to emote right.
The sound of the door opening turned Rujuko’s head and jarred her out of her wallowing. Tanaka didn’t approve of wasting time angsting over things she couldn’t change. She started to tidy up her books. Tanaka didn’t really approve of messy children, either, so Rujuko tried to be neither.
“Tanaka?” Rujuko slit her eyes and pushed out her lips as she heard shuffling down the hallway. Shuffling, then a pause with a long scrape. Shuffle. Pause. Scraaaape. Shuffle. Pause. Scraaaape.
She dropped the book she was holding and headed for the hallway, cocking her head to the side with curiosity. “Who’s there?”
Holding onto the thick, oak doorframe, Rujuko swung her head out into the hallway to see who was out there. Her eyes bulged, and she jerked backward so hard she hit the frame.
Tanaka was lurching down the hallway, black liquid dripping down from her eyes. Metallic tendrils poked out of her torn flesh and dragged along the wooden floor behind her.
Flailing backward, Rujuko felt a scream emerge from her, high and loud and powerful, a sound like she’d never heard before. She stumbled back over one of the chairs and felt to the floor, sobbing and shaking.
“No! No, God, please!”
“What...” Tanaka approached the threshold. Her head jerked repeatedly to the side. “What...”
“Tanaka? Is... Is that you?” Rujuko squeaked, crawling backward.
“What... makes you think there’s a God... other than me?” Tanaka’s voice drawled.
Rujuko wailed and reached for whatever she could grab. She could only find books and papers, and eventually, her hand closed around a pen as Tanaka had backed her up against a glass coffee table.
“Please...”
“You... are an inferior... creature...” The tendrils around Tanaka came to life and then slammed their points into the wood floor around Rujuko. “But... need a copy...”
“Please, no.”
“Prepare you for your purpose...”
“Mom!”
One of the tendrils circled around her neck and another poised itself in front of her forehead.
“NO!”
A massive cracking sound filled the room, then suddenly all the windows imploded, their shards flinging themselves toward Tanaka. Rujuko grabbed her neck as she was carried along with her mother for a few feet then dropped to the floor. She was barely able to lift her head, her neck hurt so much, but her eyes fluttered and caught the grisly glimpse of Tanaka pinned to the wall with thousands of shards of glass.
“Unnn...” Rujuko collapsed against the floor and started to sob.
Small hands lifted her up and pulled her away from the wall. “C’mon, Ruji!”
“Maddie?” Rujuko’s skinny limbs trembled as she looked on her friend. “My mom...”
“I know, Ruji. We gotta go,” Maddie insisted.
The boy next to her was pale as a sheet, both hair and skin, and he nodded in agreement, then pointed back at the wall.
“They’re still coming!” Maddie shrieked.
Though Tanaka was no longer moving, the tendrils had sprung to life yet again and shot towards the three children rapidly. The boy grabbed both of their hands, and they ran to the far side of the room as fast as they could. That was when there was a suction of sound, followed by a pop. Clark appeared in front of them facing Tanaka’s remains.
He grabbed the tendrils with two hands and fire exploded out of his eyes, taking out the other tendrils, melting each one by one until there was nothing but pools of oily black liquid.
“You kids okay?” he asked, half-turning to them.
Maddie nodded, holding Rujuko tightly. The older girl simply whimpered and clung to her friend, and the boy hovered behind the two of them silently.
“Ghost? Lex has been worried about you. Where have you been? Here all this time?” Clark frowned at them. He looked back at Tanaka and the blood and black oil dripping from her corpse. “Let’s get back to the farm. Mom’ll have something for you to eat, if you want it. Get everyone cleaned up.”
He walked over to the three trembling children and wrapped them all up in his massive arms.
“Rrrr... Rrrr...”
Clark turned his head warily at Tanaka’s body. Her eyes seemed to have cleared momentarily.
“Rrruu...”
Ruji let out a low, terrified whine.
“I’ve got you guys,” Clark, his voice deep, booming.
“Rrruuji...” Tanaka wheezed. “I... I lo... loo... vuh... loo...”
Her head wobbled to the side and went limp at an awkward angle. Her eyes remained partially open, but blank, and dead.
Clark narrowed his eyes and scanned over her body.
“She’s gone. We’re going,” Clark decided, just before speeding off.
***
Clark’s “Fortress” wasn’t Lex’s safe space, but it was close enough, and Lex was determined to keep his blood pressure low and his nerves calm. He’d convinced the Kents to help him up there. Every so often, Martha or Jonathan would peek their head in and check on him. Talking to Lena had helped to reduce the stress he’d been feeling, even if she was just as, if not more, worried about Maddie than he was. Now he sat on Clark’s red sofa, feet up and legs slightly spread, rubbing the mound of his belly rhythmically.
“We need to think up a name for you, baby. I’ve put it off way too long. Why don’t you and I think on that, hm? While we wait for your papa to get back,” Lex murmured.
“No need to wait.” Clark’s voice came from the staircase.
Lex’s eyes popped open. “You’re back quick. How’s Maddie?”
“She’s fine. I dropped her off with Lena.” Clark approached the sofa with a slow, deliberate stride. He looked down at Lex, tilting his head to the side as he watched him.
“What?” Lex asked with a smile.
“Just observing.”
“Observing.” Lex frowned and sat up a little more.
Clark’s eyes raked over Lex’s form slowly.
“‘Observing’ something you like?” Lex’s lips curved upward.
“Something that intrigues me.”
Lex’s smile faltered. “Do I now? ‘Intrigue’ you?”
He inched backward just as Clark’s hand shot forward to grab his arm. Before he was able to touch his flesh, Lex’s bracelet lit up, sending a shock through Clark and knocking him across the loft. His features rearranged themselves into a rangy twisted creature, with cheekbones like axe blades.
“Now how did you do that?” Fine asked in a slow voice, calculated but furious.
“Don’t know. Why don’t you try to lay a hand on me again?” Lex replied through gritted teeth.
“I don’t need to. I can wait. She’ll only be inside you for so long. She’s not yours, Lex.” Fine narrowed his eyes at Lex cruelly. “She...”
Lex’s eyes widened as Fine’s form began to shift again, but this time, Fine looked alarmed. As well he might. He shifted, then melted into a pool on the ground.
Lex curled his legs up as best he could and looked down at his bracelet.
“Best engagement ring ever, huh, baby?”
***
If the Kents had been worried about an empty nest, their worries were proving greatly unfounded. Martha and Jonathan in the master bedroom. Clark and Lex in Clark’s room. Three wayward orphans in the guest room. And a wearied and mildly injured master butler on the sofa.
The day had been rough and the night was proving rougher. Rujuko kept waking up screaming, until Domovoi had come upstairs, laid a hand on her head, and put her to sleep, claiming he could ensure she would have no dreams.
Clark cuddled up behind Lex, his arms protectively around his belly. Lex wondered how many nights Domovoi had granted him the gift of dreamless sleep. He wondered if he could have one now. There was no place safe. No place but Clark’s arms. And Lex was tired of living with this constant sense of danger. Maybe it only felt that way because between Brainiac and his father, there seemed to be no peace.
His father. Lex drew in a breath sharply.
“Lex?” Clark murmured. He rubbed Lex’s back and yawned. “Don’t be upset.”
“Okay.”
“Hmph. What are you thinking about?”
“My father.”
“Oh.”
“And the kids.”
“Lex, I’m sorry about your father.”
Lex nodded. “I wish I didn’t miss him so much. I’m not even sure what I’m missing.”
“Was there any time in your life he wasn’t a bad father?”
“He was very calculating most of the time. He tried never to interact with me unless it worked to his advantage.” Lex sighed and snuggled back into Clark. “When I was very small, though... It seemed like maybe he loved me, but didn’t know how.”
“We can always hope for people to be better than they are. Most of the time I try to see the good in people. Maybe it says something about you that you can see it in him, when I can’t.”
“I think it says I’m a glutton for abuse, honestly. And I may see potential in people, but I don’t always see good. I don’t even know what I would look for.”
Clark thought about that. “Well, potential and usefulness aren’t really the same thing as being good or bad, I don’t think. It makes sense. You don’t see an ability as good or bad in itself, so you don’t assume based on that. And I don’t think you should.”
“I think I need you to see the good for me. Sometimes I can’t see it. You called yourself gullible earlier, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Maybe I don’t have enough faith. Except...”
“Except?”
“All I can think is that losing my father prepared me to help Rujuko. And there’s good in that. She’s got a powerful intellect. And she’s just gone through something powerfully traumatizing.”
“I love you, Lex.” Clark nuzzled his face into the crook of Lex’s neck.
Lex chuckled.
“Go to sleep. We’ll plot and stratemagize in the morning,” Clark assured him.
Lex reached back to touch Clark’s cheek, amazed at how they managed to be so chaste, yet so intimate at the same time. It was like every touch was a connection. Dutifully, Lex closed his eyes and tried to lure himself into sleep, where hopefully he would have the blissfulness of the void, or at least meet Clark there.
***
It was morning. Lex sensed that when he opened his eyes, even though the rooster hadn’t crowed. Something had awakened him, though. He couldn’t identify it at first, and that alarmed him greatly. Lex began to turn to Clark to wake him, when he head it again. A soft little sob. Someone was crying.
Lex left Clark alone and pushed himself up. He took a breath before getting to his feet, then shuffled quietly to the door and peeked out. Sure enough, it was as he’d thought. Rujuko was sitting in the middle of the hall, curled up and crying. She must have woken in the night.
Walking over to her, Lex tried to be as quiet as possible. She didn’t even look over as he approached, but then, when he stopped in front of her, she jerked her head up abruptly. Her wide, frightened eyes began to overflow, and Lex held up a hand.
“I won’t hurt you,” Lex promised, keeping his voice as gentle as he possibly could. He looked around himself trying to figure how to get on her level without falling. Ultimately, he pressed one hand to the wall and lowered himself slowly until he was able to sit on the floor with her.
Rujuko stared at him silently for another minute, then sucked her lower lip in and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her head pressed into Lex’s chest, and he raised a hand to pet her hair.
“I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this,” Lex told her earnestly. “And I’m very sorry you had to see that. That would be too much for anyone. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but you can be certain of one thing. You’re with us, and we’ll do whatever we can to keep you safe.”
Rujuko said nothing as Lex petted her back gently, the way Lena or Clark would have done for him.
“We’re moving into the Luthor mansion. Plenty of rooms. A huge library. Puts the one at the castle to shame,” Lex continued, not certain of what he should say. “The commute to Met U won’t be as far from there, and you and Maddie can still see each other. Maddie will be learning with us, of course, but I know you two get along. Maybe you and Neveah will as well. She’s older, but now that we’ve cleaned up the mess my father caused, she needs a place to stay. She’ll like you, Ruji. She likes everyone.”
He touched her head and felt the silky black, not to mention streaks of blue and pink, hair and wondered if it bothered her that she resembled her mother. He wondered if she was ever going to be able to move past what she’d seen.
Her breathing changed, and Lex realized that she’d fallen asleep on him.
“So many little orphans,” he murmured, leaning back against the wall.
(You guys get a cookie if you can figure out what Tanaka was trying to tell Rujuko before dying.)
And thanks to herohunter for the quick beta.
Title: Must Be Dreaming
Series/WIP: Sequel to So Much Dreaming
Pairing: Clex!
Rating: PG-13
Summary: After being abducted by aliens and discovering that Jonathan Kent is alive, Lex must come to grips with his shifting relationship with Clark and an unexpected pregnancy.
Spoilers: Through S5, after Cyborg.
Warnings: mpreg, character death
Chapter One ♥ Chapter Two ♥ Chapter Three ♥ Chapter Four ♥ Chapter 5.1 ♥ Chapter 5.2 ♥ Chapter Six ♥ Chapter Seven ♥ Chapter Eight ♥ Chapter Nine ♥ Chapter Ten ♥ Chapter Eleven ♥ Chapter Twelve ♥ Chapter Thirteen ♥ Chapter Fourteen ♥ Chapter Fifteen ♥ Chapter Sixteen ♥ Chapter Seventeen ♥ Part Eighteen
Part Nineteen
The warm late August evening hung around the Kent farm, calm like the disingenuous clouds before a twister. Inside the kitchen, Martha checked on her pot roast one more time, then moved to the dish of mashed potatoes to be sure that they were creamy enough. It had been awhile since she'd really cooked like this, and with a sigh, she remembered how calming it could be.
It wasn't as though they hadn't met Lex before. They just hadn't met him in this capacity, as Clark's… boyfriend. The thought did make her a bit nervous. Possibly because they'd never had to work for Lex's good will before; it had always come rather freely. Martha had never even seen him really angry, not while he was in his right mind, until that morning he'd come to pick up Lena and Maddie.
Now there was no question that the burden of diplomacy was on Martha's shoulders. She stirred the vegetables and added a little more seasoning. When she heard the sound of a car driving up the dirt road, she made sure all the pans were turned to low and removed her apron.
"I'll go meet them, Jonathan!" she called into the other room.
"Good. Almost done straightening up in here!" he called back.
She nodded to herself and left out the screen door. Spotting the car, she hurried around the veranda to greet the boys, only stopping as she saw Clark jog around the car to Lex's door. Well, that was sweet of him, Martha thought. He opened the door and reached in for Lex, giving him a hand and support out of the car.
At that point, Martha frowned worriedly. Clark must have been glossing over Lex's condition. She started walking towards them again.
"Clark," she called. "I'm glad you both could make it."
"Wouldn't miss it for anything," Clark said and turned them to face her. His arm draped around Lex's shoulders, keeping the older man close to him.
"The roast is ready…" Martha trailed off, feeling her face flush as she stared at Lex. It had been a while since she'd seen the man, true, but it hadn't been that long, had it? He had gained so much weight, but that wasn't expected or possible when he'd been a captive for over a month. Was it? Her brain seemed to reach a conclusion before she had the sense to dismiss it. It was mostly how the weight was settled on his front, how the shirt he was wearing tugged around the bulge of his abdomen. Too familiar.
"Oh my God, Lex," she muttered before looking up at his face.
Lex seemed flushed himself and turned to Clark, who pressed a kiss to Lex's forehead. An action that did nothing to lessen the redness of Lex's cheeks and ears.
"Evening, Mrs. Kent," Lex said.
"Is that… How? Are you pregnant?" Martha sputtered.
Lex's brows twitched upward, and he shrugged his head to the side. "Seem to be."
"Well, this explains the sickness!" she exclaimed.
Clark squeezed Lex's shoulders and then kissed his cheek. "Yeah, it does."
Before Lex could protest, Martha had wrapped the boy up in a hug and kissed his cheek as well. "Come inside, please."
"All right," Lex replied a little stiffly.
Well, this must be awkward for him, Martha guessed. She took his hand, giving it a squeeze before she turned back to the house. Jonathan opened the front door to greet them, and gave the boys a big smile.
"Good to see you both," he said warmly. Clark got a big hug, and Jonathan offered Lex a handshake, which he seemed more than satisfied with. Jonathan gave Lex an appraising look. "You feeling alright these days?"
"Not too bad," Lex answered.
"Jonathan, he's…" Martha looked to the boys quickly.
"It's, uh, okay," Lex said hesitantly.
Bless his heart, Martha thought. She hugged her husband from the side and looked up to him. "Look at them, Jonathan. Lex is pregnant."
Jonathan looked skeptical for a moment, but then his head craned far to the right and he blinked a few times. "Huh."
Clark laughed and rubbed Lex's back. The boys must've been nervous.
"I'm sorry, did you two want to break the news?" Martha asked. She hoped she hadn't ruined their evening already.
"Oh, God, no," Lex replied automatically. "I'm just happy I didn't have to find a way to say it."
"How… Clark said you've only been together for a little while," Jonathan said, crossing his arms and frowning.
"That's um," Clark looked at Lex.
"It was Milton Fine," Lex said.
"Ohhhh." Jonathan nodded.
"But the baby's mine," Clark interjected.
"Oh!" Martha smiled.
"Thankfully," Lex added.
Jonathan scratched his head, looked back at the kitchen, and then back at the boys. "Why don't we take this to the kitchen? You boys are probably hungry, and Martha's been cooking all afternoon."
"Don't exaggerate," Martha scolded, as she followed him.
Clark remained by Lex's side and moved into the kitchen with them. Martha noted how he helped Lex into a chair and rubbed his back gently as Lex looked back at him. She brought the roast to the table, and soon the four of them settled into their meal amiably.
"Thank goodness they got you back," Martha said as she passed the mashed potatoes.
Jonathan, who was carving the roast, shook his head. "Everyone was worried about you, son. Now I know why they were so concerned."
"I’m doing all right now. It wasn't pleasant, no, but I've checked out well with my doctor, and believe me, everyone at the castle has been very supportive." Lex speared some vegetables. "I wouldn't worry about me too much."
"I don't know that I could do that, knowing…" Martha forced herself not to stare at Lex. It was rude, and the boys felt uncomfortable enough. But seeing that tummy so round, and with their grandchild, no less… "Do you know if it's a girl or a boy?" she asked abruptly.
Lex pinched his mouth to the side then took a drink of his milk to swallow. "A girl."
"Aw, a girl?" Martha cooed, putting her hands over her mouth. Jonathan laughed at her. "Oh, hush."
"Easy to make her happy," Jonathan teased. He looked at the boys. "Don't be so nervous. We're all family here."
At Jonathan's words, Lex's shoulders seemed to go loose, and the corners of Clark's mouth stretched as wide as they would go.
***
“You sure you aren’t pregnant again?”
Lena pursed her lips and swiveled her head around to give her mother a sharp look. There was something at once comforting and insufferable about going home. She’d always felt guilty for feeling that way, because she loved her mother, of course. But the woman drove her to distraction sometimes.
“Don’t be offensed, Mi’ja.” Gloria Luciano walked up beside Lena, who had been trying to take care of the dishes, and patted her stomach. “You just can’t seem to get rid of that belly, hm?”
Offensed, Lena repeated in her mind. Really? “My belly is fine.” She gently took her mother’s wrist and moved her hand away. “I told you, I don’t want to get pregnant again, and I’m not seeing anyone.”
“Oh, you’ll change your mind,” Gloria said with certainty.
Lena’s throat tightened. “I don’t know why you don’t think I don’t know my own mind. I’m just not ready to think about that. Not even nearly almost ready to think about that.”
“You’re not getting any younger.”
“I’m turning thirty this year. That’s hardly an old maid.”
Gloria shrugged and went to make another pot of coffee.
For the past few days, Lena had been attempting to bring up Lionel Luthor. She needed to talk to someone about it, and frankly, she wasn’t sure she wanted other members of the community to know. One thing she could count on her mother for was discretion. Gloria talked to everyone whose ear she could bend, about almost anything, but Lena knew that she hadn’t told any of her friends that her daughter was bisexual. The woman had a sense of propriety instilled in her from hard-kept old values based in weekly trips to the dilapidated Cathedral seven blocks away, and probably from her own parents. Her grandparents had always seemed like nice people. She’d been closer with Papi than Grandmama, but they’d both died when she was young, and she had actually spent more time with their friend Nan than either of her grandparents, and it seemed sometimes, her own mother.
But Lena couldn’t fault the woman for having to work. She could fault her father for spending so much time in prison, but she’d come to peace with that. He was not a bad man, just one who made bad choices in situations where he had felt that he had none. Nana Nan really had picked up the slack in raising Lena. Scrubbing rice off what should have been a soup plate, Lena reflected that may have been why she and her mother were so fundamentally opposed, at times.
It also could have been that Lena was essentially Gloria’s rape child, and if not visiting her mother enough produced some guilt, this realization completely dwarfed the feeling. Lena had wondered before if she were quite the daughter her mother had wanted, but given their Catholic beliefs and how strictly Gloria had lectured her daughter against choosing abortion when she’d found out that Marcus had gotten her pregnant before leaving town (even though Lena had never been the one to bring it up), now Lena was afraid that her mother hadn’t wanted a daughter at all. She was afraid that her mother had suffered more for having her.
It was very strange to regret your own existence.
“Mama, I think we need to talk.” Lena sighed as she started to put the dishes away.
“If this is about dating Maureena again, you know how I feel about that. Baby, she’s just not right for you,” Gloria urged. The prickly protective sensations coming off of her were almost amusing.
“I’m not dating Maureena again.”
“Or Marcus?” Oh, that made the protectiveness grow even stronger.
“Definitely not Marcus. He only gets one shot to make puppies with me.” Lena pressed her palms onto the counter and watched her mother sitting down to the table with her tea. “I want to talk about Lionel Luthor.”
Gloria made a scoffing noise, but anxiety danced throughout her veins, as though she might get up and flee at any moment. “God takes us all in His time. Although with some He takes His sweet time, I suppose.”
“I know.” Lena drew some hair behind her ear and approached the table. “I know he’s my real father, Mama.”
“What are you talking about?” Gloria looked up crossly from her tea. “Have something to eat, Elena. Don’t you eat anymore?”
Lena frowned at her mother trying to feed her after commenting about her weight. Luciano women. Ever the contradiction. “Mama, I know. I had to give Lex Luthor blood. We know that he’s my brother. I know, I just...” Lena touched her temple as red anger almost overwhelmed her.
“Lionel Luthor is not your father. Leo Luciano is your father. He held my hand in the delivery room-”
“Mama, please-”
“He changed your poopy diapers, put bandaids on your knee, and he protected you fiercely,” Gloria said sternly, her hands shaking on her teacup. “Leo was your father.”
Lena turned her head to the window and blinked back tears. She couldn’t do this to her mother. Not even for closure. Her fingers carded through the back of her hair, and she nodded. “Okay. I understand, Mama.”
Just as Lena was about to leave the kitchen, her mother spoke again: “God will never give you more than you can handle. You may not always understand why, but you take it anyway. He gave me you, and He must have had his reasons for giving such a gifted child to me.”
Pausing at the doorframe, Lena turned to look at her mother, who was stirring her tea again. Rage, vulnerability grief, regret, guilt guilt guilt...
“God knows that I wasn’t equipped to handle you on my own, but I did my best. You are my child, and Leo’s child, and His child. Maybe you were Mama and Papi’s child, too, and Nana’s. But Lionel Luthor has no part of you.” Gloria turned her head and gave Lena a hard look. “No part, do you understand? We are your family. We are your sangre. Not him.”
“I’m sorry.” Lena’s fingers brushed against her lips.
“Are you going back to Smallville? With that Lex person?”
“Not immediately. His boyfriend is looking after him right now.” Lena wanted to come closer to her mother again, but Gloria felt betrayed by Lena bringing up Lionel. “I’ll be here for a few more days.”
“And then you’re leaving again. To go live with him.”
“It’s a bit more complicated than that.”
“It’s your life.” Gloria took her tea to the sink.
Lena shuddered. Trust Mama to go from hot to cold so fast. “Mama, there’s more. There’s someone I’m going to want you to meet.”
“Why do you need my approval? You never have before.” Gloria waved your hand. “You spend all of your time with this rich white kid, and you never come home anymore.”
“He’s needed me,” Lena argued. She closed her eyes for a moment, trying to block Gloria out a little bit. It was just too much to deal with while talking to her about such sensitive things.
“He can pay people for whatever you’re doing.”
Lena threw up her hands. “No, he can’t, Mama. He needs family. He needs people to care about him who he doesn’t have to pay to do it. And especially now, he needs it.”
“Pray on your choices, Mi’ja. That is all I can tell you. Pray, and God will tell you the right path.”
Lena could feel her mother beginning to shut her out in return, and she couldn’t say that it didn’t hurt that she couldn’t talk to her about this. She couldn’t bring up Lex without admitting what she knew about Lionel, and she couldn’t explain her absence without bringing up Lex. She could only hope that her mother forgave her for continuing to see him. “God isn’t going to tell me not to love my brother. He gave me a connection to Lex, one that I felt before I even knew. It was inevitable that we meet and become friends.”
“Fine. But I don’t want to hear about him,” Gloria snapped.
“You’ll have to, if you want to know your granddaughter.”
Gloria paused, and hope reopened her heart. “You said you weren’t pregnant again!”
“No. I found a little girl, gifted like me, and Lex is going to help me get the adoption approved.”
“Adoption? Dios mio, Elena! Why didn’t you say something sooner? Where is she?”
“She’s safe with Lex. He convinced the authorities to let her into his custody. She’s special, and she’s sensitive. So sensitive.” Lena held out one hand and spread her fingers, motioning generally to the house. “I couldn’t bring her here. Not with things unsaid and below the surface. Maddie would sense the tension, and when she is upset, she can’t control her gifts.”
Lena dipped her chin and twisted her fingers. “I don’t know if I’ll ever be ready to try for another baby, Mama, and I’m sorry if that hurts you. I just don’t know. The way I feel right now, I just can’t think about it. But my gifts can help Maddie, and she’s already been through so much. I’d like for her to know you, but if it hurts you too much, I can’t bring her here.”
“Why would her adoption hurt me?” Gloria demanded. “How old is she?”
“She’s eleven. Sort of quiet. Very good with art, and so sweet.” Lena smiled, thinking of Maddie. It hurt a little to be away from the girl. “Her mother died when she was three, and she went into the foster system because her father was in Belle Reve.”
“He’s crazy? Goodness.”
“No. They put people with gifts in Belle Reve, if they catch them. Maddie would end up there eventually, without help.” Lena took a tentative step toward her mother. “She needs me. I can keep her calm, and she trusts me. She doesn’t normally trust women, because one of her foster mothers hurt her.”
“Oh. And you think you can’t bring her here because of that?” Gloria drew nearer, touching her lips with the tips of her fingers.
“I’m afraid she’ll lose control. I can use my gifts to make her be calm. But I do not want to do that to her unless I have to.” Lena put her hands in the back of her pockets. “It’s not right.”
Gloria came up to Lena and wrapped her arms around her tall daughter. “You are a good woman.”
“You want me to bring her by.”
“Si. I would love to see my granddaughter.”
Lena let out a long, tense breath. Maybe she could soften her old family to her new one after all.
***
"Can I help you?" Mercy looked up from the laptop where she had been reviewing LuthorCorp's final death throws. Soon it would only be LexCorp, and good riddance to any taint remaining from Lionel’s reign. She arched a brow sharply and was mildly surprised to see Dr. Tanaka enter the study.
"It is unlikely," Tanaka said as she approached the desk. She removed her glasses and stared coldly at Mercy, who cocked her head to the side and took her feet down from where they'd been perched on the desktop.
Mercy stood quickly and scanned Tanaka's countenance. The woman was different than she had been the last time Mercy had spoken with her. Perhaps not different, so much as unguarded. The ambiguity had been dropped, and there was nothing but a cold will as unflinching as tempered steel.
"What are you doing here, Tanaka?" Mercy asked.
Tanaka tilted her head back and regarded the taller woman through slit eyes. "I know this is a question you have been pondering for some time," she answered after a moment. She began to circle around Mercy. "I wonder how that is working out for you."
Mercy clenched her jaw and kept her eyes on Tanaka, who was circling her like a predator. Mercy Graves was no one's prey. "I think I have a guess. Is it time to call?"
Tanaka paused. "Call whom?"
"It's a poker phrase." Mercy stopped turning and let Tanaka drift to the very corner of her peripheral vision. She stared hard at the bookcase in her direct line of sight. "It means you lay down all your cards, show your hand."
"An interesting ex-"
Mercy whipped around with all of her speed and strength, delivering a roundhouse kick to Tanaka's head. She jumped backward once the blow had landed, a little off target, unfortunately, in anticipation of Tanaka's response. Mercy wasn't disappointed, and two metallic tendrils shot forward, one catching her in the side.
Wasting no time, Mercy shot forward, grabbed Tanaka's arm to keep it out of the way, and punched her in the face. Immediately, the woman's already black eyes grew blacker, the darkness flooding through the whites of her eyes. Then the color twitched, filled with white lines, then went black again.
"Bad… time-" Tanaka pulled away, her head jerking from side to side, and then tendrils burst through skin and surrounded Mercy. "-to show your hand…"
Mercy didn't wait; she flipped another kick to Tanaka's ribs. Feeling the cold metal pierce her flesh, she stumbled back, gratified to note that Tanaka was doing the same.
"Isis didn't raise us as fools," Mercy murmured as she felt to the hard, stone floor.
Tanaka was still twitching. "One loss doesn't amount to much in the middle of all of this. Not to me. There are always copies. There are always copies."
When the tendrils rose again, Mercy struggled to get up, but found herself too injured to move quickly. Her eyes closed briefly as she chastised herself for failing to move in on Tanaka sooner.
The familiar click of heels caused Mercy's eyes to pop open again, and she saw Chloe in front of her, holding her hand up to Tanaka, fingers splayed wide and glowing. Mercy couldn't make out what either was saying, but the tendrils went limp, and Tanaka fell to the floor, twitching and writhing and babbling gibberish.
Chloe dropped down to Mercy's side, slipped her arm under Mercy’s, and moved backward rapidly.
“What’d you do?” Mercy managed, pushing herself to her feet. She made sure to drag the door to the study shut before they headed down the hall.
“I turned it off. That’s about all I can manage against something like that. Alien technology is a little out of my league!”
“Will she be able to turn herself back on?” Mercy asked. She pressed her free hand to her bleeding abdomen and frowned irritably at the wound.
“I look at that thing like a virus, and a good virus will reboot the system on its own to keep doing damage.”
“What’s a good virus?”
Chloe pulled out her cell phone as they headed for the door. “Domovoi! You need to get everyone out of the mansion, now!”
***
Although disappointed that they had been unable to find a metahuman to help with the process, Domovoi was grateful that the evacuation plan seemed to be going off without a hitch. He darted down the hall, knowing that Mr. Luthor and would want Maddie taken care of personally, and all the other staff had already begun to pour out of the castle.
No time for pleasantries, Domovoi opened the door to the girl’s room and rushed in. “Miss, we must leave now. Take my hand.”
He reached out for Maddie, who turned from where she was standing by her bookcase. Then she vanished.
Domovoi blinked. Then again. He ran a hand through his gray-speckled hair. Letting his eyes fall closed for a moment, he mentally scanned the room for Maddie’s psionic signature. He should have been able to sense her there without even trying; her abilities were still fresh and largely untrained.
Still, nothing.
He took a breath and assessed his options. He needed to update Ms. Sullivan on the situation at hand, and then he would personally scour the grounds for their lost ward.
***
Clark was rubbing Lex’s back dotingly, and Lex’s head jerked up and he looked around where he was sitting beside Clark on the couch. The Kents seemed amused, rather than offended, by Lex’s sudden drowsiness. He’d determined anything that reminded them of their approaching grandchild was endearing to them, or so their expressions led him to believe.
“Pardon me,” he said, returning their smiles and touching the side of his face. He couldn’t have dozed off for more than a moment.
“Oh, sweetheart, there’s nothing to apologize for. Of course you’re going to get tired,” Martha assured him.
“I suppose it’s the way of things. You’ve looked tuckered almost every time I’ve seen you lately. Though you look better now,” Jonathan observed.
“Clark makes me nap. As well as Mercy, Chloe, Lena, Maddie, Romie, Rujuko... And Tanaka. I’m surrounded by women, and they’ve ganged up on me.” Lex smirked slightly at the thought.
Martha smiled. “Well, I’m glad they have. Are you two ready for some pie?”
“Sure!” Clark said as Lex shook his head. Clark chuckled and rubbed Lex’s shoulder. “Okay, maybe in a bit.”
Lex yawned again and blinked a few times. He needed to stay awake. It was rude to fall asleep on his hosts.
“If you want to go lay down in Clark’s room, Lex, that would be fine,” Jonathan said. “Don’t feel like you’ve gotta entertain us.”
“No, I’m fine. I’m just full, and warm, thanks to your radiator son.”
Clark laughed out loud. “I thought you liked that!”
“I do, most of the time.” Lex sighed and laid his head on Clark’s shoulder. He could tell that their affection made the Kents both a little tense, Martha less than Jonathan since she was so giddy over the prospect of a baby, but they were doing their best not to stare at them or react negatively. Lex could appreciate the diplomatic efforts they were making.
“My little girl’s sapping your energy,” Clark surmised. He kissed Lex’s temple and rubbed Lex’s belly gently. The action did nothing to relieve Lex’s sleepiness, but Clark couldn’t help himself. He couldn’t keep from touching Lex in general, and he especially couldn’t resist gluing his hands to Lex’s belly whenever they were near each other.
“It’s past her bedtime. Mm.” Lex closed his eyes. “We’ve been thinking of getting a place in Metropolis. I meant to mention it earlier.”
“You decided on a place?” Clark asked, sounding concerned.
“Yes, I decided where I’m moving myself and your child without showing you the place or consulting you at all.” Lex opened one eye to squint at Clark.
Clark rolled his eyes.
“It was inevitable, I guess,” Martha said, sounding dismayed. “How far into Metropolis?”
“Either we’ll build something-- I’m thinking of adding a tower for LexCorp employee apartments-- or we could use the old Luthor Manor on the outskirts of the city. It has plenty of room,” Lex explained. He scratched the side of his head. “We’d visit often, though.”
“Oh, I know you will. Or Martha will be getting Clark to give her a ride to Metropolis.” Jonathan sat back. “I don’t blame you for the move. Metropolis was always your city.”
“As odd as it sounds, it feels like Smallville is more dangerous than Metropolis. It’s out of the way, but there are far more meteor rocks lingering here, and while everything at the castle is organic, purified, that’s not true for the whole town. I’d worry about our daughter’s safety if we spent too much time here with her.”
“It does seem like Smallville’s changed over the years. The meteor rocks were always there when Clark was growing up, but we didn’t have near as many mutants. I mean, metahumans,” Jonathan corrected quickly.
“They were around. Or some of them were. Alicia always had her powers, for example,” Clark put in.
“Could have to do with the levels of the radiation, or the time it takes the radiation to affect a person’s brain,” Lex suggested. “Metahumans can tend to go unnoticed, until someone does something criminal.”
“In either case, I’d worry less about Lex and the baby if they were in the city.” Clark shrugged his head to the side. “That’s where I’ll be, when I’m studying and working.”
“If you moved to Metropolis, it’s two hours away. Hardly a complete cutting of ties,” Martha said. Jonathan squeezed her shoulders.
Lex’s eyes popped wide open, and he sat up straighter. He could feel his daughter shifting, and kicking him in the ribs as she did so. He put his hands his sides and took a few deep breaths. Soon Clark’s hands covered his and Lex could feel Clark’s lips on the back of his neck.
“You okay? You went pale.”
Lex looked up to see concern all over the Kents’ face. “I’m fine. She just moved a little sharply. That’s all.”
Martha’s smile seemed to stretch impossibly wide. “Oh.”
“Lex is a tough cookie. He can take it,” Clark said proudly.
Lex turned his face toward Clark. He was wide awake now, but still so warm. He’d never envisioned this scenario. Not even in his wildest of dreams could he have imagined dinner at the Kent Farm, in Clark’s arms, accepted as part of the family. It was almost too much.
Clark’s hand was quick to discreetly wipe a tear from under Lex’s eye as he moved to cup his cheek. He studied Lex’s eyes for a moment to see if he was unhappy, then gave his lips a quick kiss.
“So we were wondering if you wanted to update my room into a nursery,” Clark said, taking up the slack. “Since I’ll be with Lex and the baby, wherever they are.”
“You- You’re moving out.” Martha’s hands covered her knees. “Oh, well of course you...”
She got up and moved over to give her son a hug. “It’s just a surprise. And no, we aren’t going to convert your room. We might clean it and put in a bigger bed for when you visit. We can change the guest room into a nursery.”
“I thought you might be thinkin’ of that, given the situation,” Jonathan said.
“Things change so quickly around here,” Martha mused softly.
“I was surprised he didn’t go away to college sooner,” Jonathan disagreed. “Though like you said, Metropolis isn’t too far. Even if it weren’t, he could zip over in five minutes. You both still need to come over for dinner once a week. Change is good. Change is fine. But we should do our best to keep the family together. We’ve made a lot of mistakes over the years, and one of them, I think, had to do with you not being able to know your grandparents.”
“That was his call, too,” Clark argued.
“Well, I’d certainly like for this child to have contact with one set of his grandparents, and this one would have been preferred anyway,” Lex interjected.
Clark chuckled at that. “Yeah, otherwise she’ll be meeting zombies.”
“Hm.” Lex felt his phone ringing and pulled it out to see who would be calling him during the middle of the important night with the ‘in-laws.’ “It’s Chloe. Hold on, this is probably important. She wouldn’t have interrupted without reason.”
The Kents exchanged a look as Lex answered, “Yes, Chloe?”
“Lex, oh, God, I’m so sorry. We’re at Smallville Medical Center-”
“Hold on. What is it, Chloe? Are you all right? Who’s at the Medical Center? I thought you were in Metropolis hunting down leads on Lana.”
“Who? No, I came back right after work to work on something with Mercy.” Chloe paused and rattled off some information. Sounded like a nurse. “She should have told you. I should have figured it out.”
“Then tell me now, Chloe.”
“Tanaka was infected by Milton Fine. Maybe since you got back. Maybe the whole time she’s been working with you.”
Chloe continued with the details, but Lex couldn’t seem to hear anything. He stared fixatedly at the coffee table until he shook his head and cut her off. “Chloe that’s impossible. It couldn’t be. It couldn’t be her. You must be mistaken.”
“I... Lex, I saw it with my own eyes. When he came after Mercy-”
“It... It’s in Mercy??” Lex felt Clark’s arms tighten around him.
“No, he attacked Mercy. She was the only one who knew. I’m guessing he just wanted to get her out of the way so he could keep studying you.”
“Tanaka...”
”I must say, I am eager to expand my research with a willing participant.”
”I don’t have a good bedside manner.”
“Tanaka...”
Dr. Tanaka squirted some goop on her hands and unceremoniously inserted her finger up his ass. Lex winced. Her eyes rolled to the ceiling as her other hand came up and began gently prodding his belly.
"I advise you once again to keep your condition concealed. We hardly want outside interference in this process."
“When you were abducted, whoever took you changed you insides.” She slid another finger in, then it felt tight and… very strange. It was all Lex could do to keep from screaming at her or fleeing from the bed.
“Good news,” she said, sucking in her cheeks slightly. She didn’t look at all happy. “Though the circumstances are less than what one would desire.”
Lex didn’t notice as the phone dropped from his hand. He bent over, curling his arms around his belly and closing his eyes tightly.
Not that he was about to start that argument with Tanaka again. Talking to her was about as useful as shouting at your computer.
“Lex!”
“She would never... never... not when Lena was around...”
Tanaka made a swift exit, after telling Rujuko to put the equipment away. Then Lena entered and sat on the bed with Lex.
Something was being wrapped around him. Someone was rocking him. He couldn’t stop shaking.
Lex rolled his eyes up to the ceiling and tried to distance himself from the examination. He didn't like them before being abducted, and he liked them even less now. Tanaka's cold fingers seemed to trigger a body memory of being underground, pawed by Lionel's nosy doctors, and sometimes of being somewhere else, on a table with Brainiac touching him ever so disinterestedly with his inhuman hands.
“Lex, please. God, Mom, what do I do?”
“Give me the phone. Jonathan, get a glass of cold water and mix a little sugar in it.”
Emerging from a fathomless darkness, Lex opened his eyes to lights that seemed preternaturally bright, even for what appeared to be an operating room.
“Where... Where am I?” he tried to say, although he heard no sound come out.
His vision was blurred, and all he could make out were several men in white coats, all of the same size and shape. After blinking a few times, he could tell that they all seemed to have the same color hair. But his vision was still gluey. He wished it would clear.
Lex couldn’t move much. He wondered idly if he’d been in another car wreck. Taken another bullet to the chest? It seemed like these days everyone wanted to kill him. He was sure in most cases it wasn’t warranted. Maybe not all, but most.
“Do not let him heal.”
“His heart rate has increased.”
“The neural blocker is working. Continue.”
“Could someone please tell me what’s happened?” Lex tried again. Again, no sound. Nothing. They continued to work, ignoring him completely.
For what felt like twenty minutes, at least, Lex sluggishly looked around himself, trying to focus long enough to make sense out of the shapes and colors that he saw. If he were in surgery, of course he’d have anesthetic, but this felt different. It felt like... he was detached from his body.
Then his vision came into focus, and he looked down.
“What the hell are you doing to me?” his silent protest went unheeded. All that signaled his distress was the monitor for his heart, beeping beeping beeping oh so quickly.
His abdomen was completely split open, organs exposed.
“Continue mapping the tissue,” one of the men in a coat said.
Lex looked on him in shock. He recognized this man. In fact, he recognized them all, since they were all the same man.
Milton Fine.
“Let me out of here!” he mentally railed. Now he felt the words caught at the back of his throat. “Let me go you sick son of a bitch!”
Slowly, one of them turned its head and smiled slightly, ever so amused at the discontent of its specimen.
“The neural blocker is working. Continue mapping the tissues.”
“The artificial organ needs more blood.”
“Transferring.”
Alarmed at the sight of what appeared to be no less than five Milton Fines, Lex tried to struggle against whatever bonds held him, but it was futile. Utterly futile.
His breaths were quick. Short and panicked. The body he could not feel reacted to his distress without him. One of the copies that had been watching his lungs then leaned over him, its garishly severe face looming ever closer. It slid a finger slick from Lex’s own bodily fluids along his jaw, and its teeth, uncannily white and sharp, flashed before him.
Then it pressed its lips to his own and watched Lex’s wide, helpless eyes as its tongue slipped into his mouth.
“Do not let him heal.”
It straightened up, gave Lex another sadistic smirk, then frowned down at his vivisected abdomen. In a swift motion, the scalpel made another slice at the collarbone and the pelvis.
“Continue.”
“The tissue is integrating acceptably.”
“Prepare the embryo.”
“It should be implanted at another time.”
“The blood loss is too great for optimal fertilization.”
“Agreed. Continue.”
With an effort, Lex kept his eyes open. It would only be worse to be blind, not knowing what they were doing. In that moment, he wished, very, very sincerely, that whatever they were doing would kill him, and he wouldn’t have to endure this paralytic hell a moment longer.
“Do not let him heal.”
Lex could almost feel his lips move. Though it might have been his imagination, because his plea was silent:
“Clark.”
“Clark. Clark.”
“I’m here, Lex. I’m here, okay? Christ. I’m here.”
Lex blinked and felt his body shaking, despite the blanket and arms wrapped around it. “Never gonna leave us alone,” he whispered in an unsteady, hoarse voice.
“What? No, I won’t.” Clark pressed a kiss to Lex’s forehead and petted his hand down the back of his head several times. “Lex, I’m here. I’m here.”
“I- I know. I just... Tanaka. She...”
“Lex?!” Clark tilted his head back and looked into Lex’s eyes. He gave Lex a gentle squeeze. “God, you scared me. I know about Tanaka. Chloe filled us in. You’re safe here. I’ve got you.”
Lex shook his head. “No, no... It’s not...”
“It’s gonna be okay,” Clark said confidently. He took a glass of water from his mother tried to press it to Lex’s lips. “Just drink this slowly. It’s gonna be okay.”
Lex pulled back, curling his lips over his teeth and shouted, “It’s not going to be okay, Clark! It’s not going to be okay! That thing will never leave us alone! Do you understand that? It will stalk us for the rest of our lives, and it’s all my fault.”
Clark held the glass dumbly for a moment, then looked to his parents.
“It isn’t your fault, Lex,” Martha intervened. “You can’t ever let yourself think that. If anything, it’s ours, for keeping you in the dark about all of this.”
“Milton Fine wouldn’t be here if It weren’t for me,” Clark said guiltily.
“No, you don’t know that,” Lex argued. He touched his head, still dazed and uncertain if any of the words coming out of his mouth made sense together. “But I do know I flashed myself on its radar seven months ago, bright and shiny like a damn beacon. I found Tanaka, not the other way around. This is all my fault.” He shook his head again and then let it drop into his hands. “And it will never let us be. It’ll come for her. No matter how many times we find it, it’ll make more copies, and it will take my daughter.”
“You found Tanaka because you were pregn-”
“I found Tanaka because I wanted a baby.” Lex went silent momentarily and suppressed a sob. Everything he did fell apart. “I wanted someone to love. I wanted a baby. That was before Fine took me in his ship. He had likely already possessed her. She saw my blood type. She found out I would be a good specimen. I brought this on myself, and now you as well.”
“You wanted a child,” Martha repeated softly.
Clark crouched down to Lex’s level and put his hands on the side of Lex’s face. “Please stop blaming yourself. It-”
“It is not okay. Please stop saying so. It... It fucking killed my father! It killed my nephew, and it almost killed Lena.” Lex met Clark’s eye, but tears were blurring his vision. “All because I’m a selfish idiot.”
“You are not. Please. As if the worst thing anyone ever did was want someone to love,” Clark scoffed. “Plenty of people go to crazy lengths to get a baby. Some women steal babies, or cut them out of other women. Others spend millions on in-vitro, or they grab a kid from another county. Plenty of people do stupid things to get a child, every day. Don’t be dumb.”
Lex frowned slightly. “I’m not an idiot, but I’m dumb?”
“You’re wonderful. Idly considering finding a way to have a child doesn’t make you selfish or an idiot. Don’t you think it would be great to be able to tell her that you wanted her?” Clark tried a hopeful sideways smile. Lex stared back at Clark, his brows creased and fretful. Then Clark pinched Lex’s lower lip playfully. “It helps me to know my parents wanted me. Even not knowing if my biological parents really wanted me... really hurt. Until I found out they didn’t want to let me go. She’s wanted, Lex. That’s all.”
Clark leaned forward to rub Lex’s back. “And Fine already had me in his crosshairs. Remember? Tried to kill my mom. Separated me from you.”
“You’re wonderful. I’m still scared. And I still put myself out there for it to see.”
“So you’d be happier if she didn’t exist at all.”
“Of course not,” Lex admonished, looking at Clark sharply.
“Because you want her. And you love her. You loved her way before you were even sure she wasn’t an alien chestburster. That doesn’t make you a bad person. It makes you a good dad. It makes you loving, and even if your father didn’t get it, that’s not a bad thing.” Clark pressed their foreheads together. “Fine just took advantage you being loving. Just like he took advantage of Lionel being arrogant, and he took advantage of me being, well, gullible. He knew you wouldn’t abort her because you wanted a child to love, and he gave you one.”
“I hate being played,” Lex groaned.
“Your heart is still racing. Drink your water,” Clark ordered. He looked up. “Mom?”
“Here you go, sweetheart.” Martha crouched beside them as Clark pressed the glass to Lex’s lips once more. “You should stay here tonight. With Clark, hm?”
Lex swallowed the slightly sweetened water and wondered what this remedy was supposed to do for him. He felt another strong hand on his back and looked up to see Jonathan’s concerned face frowning down at him.
Good God, they all want to take care of me. Of us.
“What was Chloe saying? About Mercy? Is she all right?” Lex asked hoarsely.
“I don’t think you should be worrying about that,” Jonathan said. “You just had a... episode or something.”
“Flashback. I had a flashback.” Lex closed his eyes. He wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with the phenomenon. Clark curled up closer to him and rubbed his back again.
“They took Mercy to the ER,” Martha answered quietly. “They don’t know her status yet, but Tanaka was injured, and Chloe said she called for an evacuation of the castle.”
“That’s good.” After a long silence, Lex opened his eyes to see the Kents exchanging a look between one another. “What? Did they not all get out?”
Another silence. Lex was afraid to push, given how unstable he’d just proven himself to be.
“Domovoi stayed behind to look for Maddie,” Jonathan said finally.
Lex felt his insides clench. “Maddie is still there?”
“Lex, please. You need to try to stay calm,” Clark said gently. “Okay? Try to stay calm. For her.”
One deep breath, then two. “Can you go get her?”
“I don’t really want to leave you right now,” Clark admitted.
“I have your mother and father right here. Fine doesn’t want to abduct me again right now. It just wants to watch me. If I can keep myself from getting triggered again, I should be fine.” Lex pressed his lips flat and looked into Clark’s eyes.
Clark was worrying his teeth over his lips when Lex’s phone rang again. “Christ.”
“Clark, language.” Martha rolled her eyes.
“I can swear if I want.”
“Not around the baby you won’t,” Martha said, picking up the phone. “It’s Lena.”
A collective breath seemed to be released.
“She felt what happened. Wants to know I’m okay.” Lex reached for the phone. “Lenie, I’m all right. Hang on, okay?”
He looked at Clark again. Clark sighed. “Go lay down while you talk to your sister, okay? Stay calm. Breathe deep. Let her do her soothing thing she does. Don’t think about Tanaka or Fine.”
“Promise.” Lex nodded. “Thank you, Clark.”
Clark gave Lex a lingering kiss, then leaned over and kissed his belly gently. “I’ll be back as soon as I can. Mom?”
“We’ll make sure he gets upstairs okay. It’ll be fine. We just need to keep things calm for a little bit,” Martha said, looking on Lex warmly.
Reluctantly, Clark stood, squeezing Lex’s hand. Then he gave Lex and his parents a nod, and disappeared.
***
Rujuko’s eyes lazily opened, then closed again. She felt a crick in her neck that was fairly familiar, and she looked down to see, to her embarrassment, that she’d drooled all over her notebook.
“You are working too hard, Ruji,” she said in a stiff, cold voice. As she straightened up and stretched, she lowered her voice and opened her mouth wide, letting her vowels elongate more. “It appears that you have a double life, Rujuko. You know they say the ancient figure Alexander the Great had a similar problem. Related to war elephants. Let me tell you all about that.”
She giggled to herself, then bit her lip and wondered how Lex was feeling. Even though her dad was a lot more open, Lex still reminded her a lot of her dad. Her dad cared. He cared about everyone around him, and he was warm, with big arms that wrapped around you like nothing else.
The way Lex was with Maddie, or how he tried to be-- It was like seeing her dad in the bald man’s face. It didn’t hurt that her father had used the technology he’d been working on with Tanaka to create a child for himself, and even though Lex hadn’t planned this, he seemed to have some fatherly instinct in him. She was there, watching, when she saw him see the ultrasound for the first time. When in the midst of his anguish, his eyes set upon the figure of a little developing baby and he fell in love.
She did everything she could to make this surprise pregnancy bearable for him, even if Tanaka didn’t care when he was miserable. Sometimes... she kind of wished Lex and Lena would grab her and play with her the way they did Maddie.
But Rujuko knew she was too old for that stuff, and she didn’t, couldn’t, look at anyone with big doe eyes that made them want to take care of her. Somehow despite all of her efforts, she’d inherited her mother’s inability to express on the outside what she was feeling on the inside, and she hated it. She hated that part of herself. She giggled when she was annoyed. When she wanted to smile and giggle, she froze and went monotone. When she wanted to cry, she got angry and snapped at people. It was all messed up and wrong, and she was all messed up and awkward. She could have sworn she was better at all this stuff when her dad was around. Or maybe he just knew how to read her. She didn’t know. All she knew was that sometimes being a ‘genius’ didn’t get you very far, if you couldn’t interact with human beings properly. No wonder Tanaka had given up trying to emote right.
The sound of the door opening turned Rujuko’s head and jarred her out of her wallowing. Tanaka didn’t approve of wasting time angsting over things she couldn’t change. She started to tidy up her books. Tanaka didn’t really approve of messy children, either, so Rujuko tried to be neither.
“Tanaka?” Rujuko slit her eyes and pushed out her lips as she heard shuffling down the hallway. Shuffling, then a pause with a long scrape. Shuffle. Pause. Scraaaape. Shuffle. Pause. Scraaaape.
She dropped the book she was holding and headed for the hallway, cocking her head to the side with curiosity. “Who’s there?”
Holding onto the thick, oak doorframe, Rujuko swung her head out into the hallway to see who was out there. Her eyes bulged, and she jerked backward so hard she hit the frame.
Tanaka was lurching down the hallway, black liquid dripping down from her eyes. Metallic tendrils poked out of her torn flesh and dragged along the wooden floor behind her.
Flailing backward, Rujuko felt a scream emerge from her, high and loud and powerful, a sound like she’d never heard before. She stumbled back over one of the chairs and felt to the floor, sobbing and shaking.
“No! No, God, please!”
“What...” Tanaka approached the threshold. Her head jerked repeatedly to the side. “What...”
“Tanaka? Is... Is that you?” Rujuko squeaked, crawling backward.
“What... makes you think there’s a God... other than me?” Tanaka’s voice drawled.
Rujuko wailed and reached for whatever she could grab. She could only find books and papers, and eventually, her hand closed around a pen as Tanaka had backed her up against a glass coffee table.
“Please...”
“You... are an inferior... creature...” The tendrils around Tanaka came to life and then slammed their points into the wood floor around Rujuko. “But... need a copy...”
“Please, no.”
“Prepare you for your purpose...”
“Mom!”
One of the tendrils circled around her neck and another poised itself in front of her forehead.
“NO!”
A massive cracking sound filled the room, then suddenly all the windows imploded, their shards flinging themselves toward Tanaka. Rujuko grabbed her neck as she was carried along with her mother for a few feet then dropped to the floor. She was barely able to lift her head, her neck hurt so much, but her eyes fluttered and caught the grisly glimpse of Tanaka pinned to the wall with thousands of shards of glass.
“Unnn...” Rujuko collapsed against the floor and started to sob.
Small hands lifted her up and pulled her away from the wall. “C’mon, Ruji!”
“Maddie?” Rujuko’s skinny limbs trembled as she looked on her friend. “My mom...”
“I know, Ruji. We gotta go,” Maddie insisted.
The boy next to her was pale as a sheet, both hair and skin, and he nodded in agreement, then pointed back at the wall.
“They’re still coming!” Maddie shrieked.
Though Tanaka was no longer moving, the tendrils had sprung to life yet again and shot towards the three children rapidly. The boy grabbed both of their hands, and they ran to the far side of the room as fast as they could. That was when there was a suction of sound, followed by a pop. Clark appeared in front of them facing Tanaka’s remains.
He grabbed the tendrils with two hands and fire exploded out of his eyes, taking out the other tendrils, melting each one by one until there was nothing but pools of oily black liquid.
“You kids okay?” he asked, half-turning to them.
Maddie nodded, holding Rujuko tightly. The older girl simply whimpered and clung to her friend, and the boy hovered behind the two of them silently.
“Ghost? Lex has been worried about you. Where have you been? Here all this time?” Clark frowned at them. He looked back at Tanaka and the blood and black oil dripping from her corpse. “Let’s get back to the farm. Mom’ll have something for you to eat, if you want it. Get everyone cleaned up.”
He walked over to the three trembling children and wrapped them all up in his massive arms.
“Rrrr... Rrrr...”
Clark turned his head warily at Tanaka’s body. Her eyes seemed to have cleared momentarily.
“Rrruu...”
Ruji let out a low, terrified whine.
“I’ve got you guys,” Clark, his voice deep, booming.
“Rrruuji...” Tanaka wheezed. “I... I lo... loo... vuh... loo...”
Her head wobbled to the side and went limp at an awkward angle. Her eyes remained partially open, but blank, and dead.
Clark narrowed his eyes and scanned over her body.
“She’s gone. We’re going,” Clark decided, just before speeding off.
***
Clark’s “Fortress” wasn’t Lex’s safe space, but it was close enough, and Lex was determined to keep his blood pressure low and his nerves calm. He’d convinced the Kents to help him up there. Every so often, Martha or Jonathan would peek their head in and check on him. Talking to Lena had helped to reduce the stress he’d been feeling, even if she was just as, if not more, worried about Maddie than he was. Now he sat on Clark’s red sofa, feet up and legs slightly spread, rubbing the mound of his belly rhythmically.
“We need to think up a name for you, baby. I’ve put it off way too long. Why don’t you and I think on that, hm? While we wait for your papa to get back,” Lex murmured.
“No need to wait.” Clark’s voice came from the staircase.
Lex’s eyes popped open. “You’re back quick. How’s Maddie?”
“She’s fine. I dropped her off with Lena.” Clark approached the sofa with a slow, deliberate stride. He looked down at Lex, tilting his head to the side as he watched him.
“What?” Lex asked with a smile.
“Just observing.”
“Observing.” Lex frowned and sat up a little more.
Clark’s eyes raked over Lex’s form slowly.
“‘Observing’ something you like?” Lex’s lips curved upward.
“Something that intrigues me.”
Lex’s smile faltered. “Do I now? ‘Intrigue’ you?”
He inched backward just as Clark’s hand shot forward to grab his arm. Before he was able to touch his flesh, Lex’s bracelet lit up, sending a shock through Clark and knocking him across the loft. His features rearranged themselves into a rangy twisted creature, with cheekbones like axe blades.
“Now how did you do that?” Fine asked in a slow voice, calculated but furious.
“Don’t know. Why don’t you try to lay a hand on me again?” Lex replied through gritted teeth.
“I don’t need to. I can wait. She’ll only be inside you for so long. She’s not yours, Lex.” Fine narrowed his eyes at Lex cruelly. “She...”
Lex’s eyes widened as Fine’s form began to shift again, but this time, Fine looked alarmed. As well he might. He shifted, then melted into a pool on the ground.
Lex curled his legs up as best he could and looked down at his bracelet.
“Best engagement ring ever, huh, baby?”
***
If the Kents had been worried about an empty nest, their worries were proving greatly unfounded. Martha and Jonathan in the master bedroom. Clark and Lex in Clark’s room. Three wayward orphans in the guest room. And a wearied and mildly injured master butler on the sofa.
The day had been rough and the night was proving rougher. Rujuko kept waking up screaming, until Domovoi had come upstairs, laid a hand on her head, and put her to sleep, claiming he could ensure she would have no dreams.
Clark cuddled up behind Lex, his arms protectively around his belly. Lex wondered how many nights Domovoi had granted him the gift of dreamless sleep. He wondered if he could have one now. There was no place safe. No place but Clark’s arms. And Lex was tired of living with this constant sense of danger. Maybe it only felt that way because between Brainiac and his father, there seemed to be no peace.
His father. Lex drew in a breath sharply.
“Lex?” Clark murmured. He rubbed Lex’s back and yawned. “Don’t be upset.”
“Okay.”
“Hmph. What are you thinking about?”
“My father.”
“Oh.”
“And the kids.”
“Lex, I’m sorry about your father.”
Lex nodded. “I wish I didn’t miss him so much. I’m not even sure what I’m missing.”
“Was there any time in your life he wasn’t a bad father?”
“He was very calculating most of the time. He tried never to interact with me unless it worked to his advantage.” Lex sighed and snuggled back into Clark. “When I was very small, though... It seemed like maybe he loved me, but didn’t know how.”
“We can always hope for people to be better than they are. Most of the time I try to see the good in people. Maybe it says something about you that you can see it in him, when I can’t.”
“I think it says I’m a glutton for abuse, honestly. And I may see potential in people, but I don’t always see good. I don’t even know what I would look for.”
Clark thought about that. “Well, potential and usefulness aren’t really the same thing as being good or bad, I don’t think. It makes sense. You don’t see an ability as good or bad in itself, so you don’t assume based on that. And I don’t think you should.”
“I think I need you to see the good for me. Sometimes I can’t see it. You called yourself gullible earlier, but I don’t think it’s that simple. Maybe I don’t have enough faith. Except...”
“Except?”
“All I can think is that losing my father prepared me to help Rujuko. And there’s good in that. She’s got a powerful intellect. And she’s just gone through something powerfully traumatizing.”
“I love you, Lex.” Clark nuzzled his face into the crook of Lex’s neck.
Lex chuckled.
“Go to sleep. We’ll plot and stratemagize in the morning,” Clark assured him.
Lex reached back to touch Clark’s cheek, amazed at how they managed to be so chaste, yet so intimate at the same time. It was like every touch was a connection. Dutifully, Lex closed his eyes and tried to lure himself into sleep, where hopefully he would have the blissfulness of the void, or at least meet Clark there.
***
It was morning. Lex sensed that when he opened his eyes, even though the rooster hadn’t crowed. Something had awakened him, though. He couldn’t identify it at first, and that alarmed him greatly. Lex began to turn to Clark to wake him, when he head it again. A soft little sob. Someone was crying.
Lex left Clark alone and pushed himself up. He took a breath before getting to his feet, then shuffled quietly to the door and peeked out. Sure enough, it was as he’d thought. Rujuko was sitting in the middle of the hall, curled up and crying. She must have woken in the night.
Walking over to her, Lex tried to be as quiet as possible. She didn’t even look over as he approached, but then, when he stopped in front of her, she jerked her head up abruptly. Her wide, frightened eyes began to overflow, and Lex held up a hand.
“I won’t hurt you,” Lex promised, keeping his voice as gentle as he possibly could. He looked around himself trying to figure how to get on her level without falling. Ultimately, he pressed one hand to the wall and lowered himself slowly until he was able to sit on the floor with her.
Rujuko stared at him silently for another minute, then sucked her lower lip in and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her head pressed into Lex’s chest, and he raised a hand to pet her hair.
“I’m sorry you’ve had to go through this,” Lex told her earnestly. “And I’m very sorry you had to see that. That would be too much for anyone. I don’t know what tomorrow will bring, but you can be certain of one thing. You’re with us, and we’ll do whatever we can to keep you safe.”
Rujuko said nothing as Lex petted her back gently, the way Lena or Clark would have done for him.
“We’re moving into the Luthor mansion. Plenty of rooms. A huge library. Puts the one at the castle to shame,” Lex continued, not certain of what he should say. “The commute to Met U won’t be as far from there, and you and Maddie can still see each other. Maddie will be learning with us, of course, but I know you two get along. Maybe you and Neveah will as well. She’s older, but now that we’ve cleaned up the mess my father caused, she needs a place to stay. She’ll like you, Ruji. She likes everyone.”
He touched her head and felt the silky black, not to mention streaks of blue and pink, hair and wondered if it bothered her that she resembled her mother. He wondered if she was ever going to be able to move past what she’d seen.
Her breathing changed, and Lex realized that she’d fallen asleep on him.
“So many little orphans,” he murmured, leaning back against the wall.
(You guys get a cookie if you can figure out what Tanaka was trying to tell Rujuko before dying.)