FIC: Light of a Distant Sun (Smallville, Clark/Lex, PG-13) (8/9)
Title: Light of a Distant Sun (8/9)
Author: Regann
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Summary: At one point in time, there are any number of futures possible, no matter how improbable they may seem. With a little help, Clark and Lex might find a better destiny waiting for them than the ones they're heading toward. Goes AU with the events of S3's "Extinction," and features a special guest appearance from a character from Gene Roddenberry's "Andromeda." Complete in NINE parts, to be posted over the next week or so.
Past Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
Warnings/Notes: I know it sounds crazy, but just go with it. Spoilers for everything in Seasons 1 through 3, but also Season 7's "Artic." Also, this would've never be finished without the crazy support and beta-reading of kaitou_lili!
Light of a Distant Sun, Chapter 8
Except for the shifting shadows from its one window, time seemed to stand still in Trance's attic room.
When Clark woke the next morning, it was to the bright gold of the morning sun pouring in through the filmy curtains, shade raised to let the light fill the quiet space. The bed was empty, sheets tangled, and the quilt had somehow ended up thrown over Clark where he still sat on the floor, a pillow mysteriously wedged under his bowed head. He might have wondered about Lex's whereabouts if not for the tell-tale sound of running water in the adjacent bathroom, little rivulets of warm steam escaping from beneath the closed door.
Clark was smoothing the quilt over the straightened sheets when the bathroom door opened and Lex emerged in a cloud of curling steam. His pale skin was flushed from the heat, and he was dressed in dark slacks and a gray shirt that could've only come from his own closet.
"Where did you get the clothes?" Clark asked, sitting on the edge of the made bed.
"The ever-surprising Ms. Gemini supplied them this morning," Lex said as he finished buttoning the shirt. It reminded Clark of another morning in his loft, which felt like a forever ago. "You're going to have to explain to me why you trust her one of these days."
Clark didn't reply because he knew it was something he'd probably never tell Lex. "How do you feel?"
Lex didn't look at him as he answered; instead, he leaned against the wall and stared out into the bright morning sun. "Like my father had me driven insane to cover up the fact he murdered his own parents." He shook his head. "Just when I thought he couldn't get any worse."
"What are you going to do now?"
"Honestly? I don't have a clue." Lex sighed. "Morgan Edge is gone, and so is all the proof I had on my father. And I'm certain he's done his usual thorough job at cleaning up behind what's happened the last few days. I'm back where I'm started."
"You have to do something." The thought that anyone, including Lionel Luthor, could go unpunished for what he had made Lex endure was terrifying to Clark, almost as horrible as the moment he had learned that Jor-El expected him to conquer the planet.
"I know. I just don't seem to have many options at the moment." Lex paused. "Right now, I think murder might be the best way to go."
"Lex."
He glanced toward Clark at the sound of his name. "It's a viable solution, maybe the only one I have if my father has convinced the world that I've gone crazy in my absence."
"Trance has been monitoring the newspapers," Clark told him, proud of his forethought. "You haven't even made the Inquisitor."
"Well, thank goodness for that," Lex drawled, his tone bored and sarcastic. He shook his head. "Ignore me. It seems my sense of humor didn't make the same miraculous recovery my sanity did."
"I think you're allowed," Clark said, rising to his feet. He moved until he stood next to him by the window. "You don't have to apologize for being angry."
"You would say that," Lex said. He pulled himself upright and turned so he was looking at Clark, his face illuminated by the sun. "But I do, and not just for that. I'm sorry I doubted you, Clark. That I could think..."
There was such regret in Lex -- in his voice, in the tight lines of his face -- Clark wanted to comfort him, but stopped himself just before he touched him. He settled for words. "This honesty thing is new. For both of us. It's not surprising that you could maybe think something like that, with everything that was going on."
It was Lex who moved closer, his eyes like quicksilver in the sunlight. "There's no one I trust more than you. I hope you know that."
Clark nodded. "I'm sorry, too. For the lies, from the beginning."
"I think you've more than made up for it," Lex told him softly. "You've gone above and beyond what any man could ask of a friend."
Clark remembered being on red kryptonite, how the surge of freedom it had given him had also bestowed confidence, a giddy recklessness that left him unafraid of repercussions. What he felt in that moment was close to that, except there was fear, only it was outweighed by the need to be truthful for once, all consequences damned.
He licked his lips nervously and asked the question that had been tripping through his mind since that last night in his barn. "Am I really just your friend, Lex?"
Lex watched him with a frightening intensity, every muscle in his face suddenly still. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to change his mind. Clark was startled to feel Lex's hand on his shoulder -- not a grip, but a caress as his thumb brushed over the hollow of his throat. "I don't have the words for what you are to me."
In that moment, Clark wondered how he had ever mistook kryptonite poisoning for the stirrings of love; what he felt was nothing like how it had been when Lana's meteorite necklace had churned up in his insides, this bright, expansive feeling that started in his chest and spread like honey, that left him breathless with anticipation.
Lex's hands came up to his face, leaving a trail of fire on his skin, and he tugged Clark's mouth down to meet his, and then Lex was kissing him -- not hesitant, but careful, achingly gentle in the way he let his lips explore Clark's. Clark leaned into Lex, into the kiss, mouth moving against his as his hands slid beneath Lex's untucked shirt and over skin that still held the faint heat of the shower.
Clark was being careful, too, with the way his hands ghosted over Lex's back as he pulled him closer, but then Lex's fingers sank into his hair as he deepened the kiss and only years of ingrained restraint kept Clark from leaving bruises as he stopped thinking about anything other than the fact that he was kissing Lex.
It was Lex who finally broke away, his chest rising sharply as he took in several quick breaths. He kept his hands on Clark, though, and his lips brushed over Clark's cheek as he rested against him. "Maybe I was wrong," he said. "Maybe I have gone crazy."
Such an amused, indulgent tone; Clark felt its answer in his own laughter-tinged voice. "Because you like me?"
"Because I've given into a temptation I've fought for years." Lex pulled back a little more, only to touch his thumb to Clark's bottom lip, sliding the rough pad over its swollen curve. "It speaks to a horrible lapse in self-control, not to mention judgment."
"Maybe it just means you're finally coming to your senses," Clark said, watching the way the sunlight played across Lex's face.
"This is not indicative of sanity." But Lex was smiling as he said it.
"Years?" he asked. That admission had surprised Clark, made him want to cast himself back through every memory he had of Lex since they had met, looking for signs he might have missed that hinted at what they were becoming.
"You've always been very important to me, Clark." It wasn't exactly an answer, except that it was the kind Lex often gave. He further distracted Clark with another kiss, one that left him so addled he almost missed what Lex said after they separated. "And that's why I don't want you involved in whatever happens next."
Clark managed to frown through his haze of happiness. "It's a little late for that, Lex."
"No, it's not," Lex argued. His hands -- spread flat against Clark's chest -- curled to grip his biceps. "I want you to go home. Tell them you've been looking for me but couldn't find me. Then stay there until this is over."
"And what are you going to do?" Clark didn't like the idea of Lex sending him away. The worry he'd lived with before started to gnaw at his gut.
"I'm not sure yet," Lex conceded. "But this still isn't your battle."
His own hold tightened. "Lex..."
"No, Clark," Lex said, cutting him off. His face was stern, eyes glittering with intensity. "We've just established that you're important to me -- too important for me to let you become any more of a pawn in my father's sick games." The gentle brush of lips against his was in marked contrast to the steel of Lex's words. "Especially with the secrets you have. It's too dangerous."
"I'm not going to win on this, am I?" he sighed. Clark realized that Lex was right, that he did have secrets that meant he needed to stay off Lionel's radar as much as possible, something he hadn't managed so far. And he knew his parents had to be worried, after he had disappeared so many days ago.
"You get your way more than you should, anyway," Lex told him with a smile in his voice. "Better luck next time."
Despite his acquiescence, Clark wasn't quite ready to deal with the outside world. He took the initiative and pressed his mouth to Lex's, then let his lips slide down his chin to Lex's pale throat, a trail of toothy nips soothed by his tongue. "When do you want me to leave?" he murmured in between biting caresses.
Lex sounded breathless as he tried to answer, a fact that made Clark feel smug. "I guess...a little while longer won't matter."
Their kisses grew more desperate, more hungry, and Clark held on as tightly as he dared. He worried about what would happen to both of them once they left the quiet haven of the attic room, if the connection they had made would survive the stresses that waited.
But each touch of Lex's skin against his own was a promise that they would endure and Clark let himself be seduced -- by Lex, by his touch, and by the gold glow of the morning sun that surrounded them with its light.
**
Despite his agreement to Lex's request, Clark remained reluctant to leave. Lex was both touched and annoyed by Clark's desire to stay, but his own impulse to protect him won out and he finally demanded his departure. As much as he wanted Clark with him, his friend was safer at home, and Lex had plans to make and fathers to plot against, both of which were easier to do without his living, breathing conscience at his elbow.
"Clark's gone," Trance said as she stepped into the attic room a few hours later.
"Finally, you mean?" Lex asked, barely looking up from the papers in his hand. He was sitting in the middle on the room's bed, stacks of printed newspaper strewn across its surface, a legal pad balanced on his bended knee.
"He's concerned," Trance said. Her statement was just that -- a declaration, no undercurrent of emotion coloring the words to give Lex a clue as to her opinion on it.
"He would do better to worry about himself," Lex told her. "I have my own future well in hand."
"Really?" There was amusement in her voice.
"I will," Lex corrected, sparing her one chilly glance. "I'll be out of here soon."
"Take your time," she said. "You can stay as long as you like."
Lex wished he was the kind who would be content to hide, to disappear into the night and wait out his father's threat. If he was, his next steps would be easy instead of the quagmire of power plays he needed them to be.
In response to Lex's silence, Trance grinned, a thoroughly mischievous expression on her impish face. "Not such a tempting offer now that Clark's gone, is it?"
Lex chose to ignore her insinuation and asked the question that had plagued him since Clark had informed them of their location. "I'm not still not clear as to why you're helping me in the first place."
Her teasing expression faded a little. "Clark's a friend. He needed someone and I was glad to be there."
"That's your only reason?"
"No," she said.
"So you have others?"
"Yes," Trance said.
"Care to share?"
"No," she said again. At his look, she added, "They're not bad reasons, they're just mine. You know how that is, don't you?"
It dawned on Lex that for all his suspicions of Trance Gemini, he had still underestimated her. Her smile told him the realization was written all over his face. "Well, your assurances have certainly put my mind at ease."
Trance rolled her eyes at his sarcasm and reached for the door. "You've been given a second chance, Lex. Let's hope you don't waste it."
While he didn't appreciate a stranger's dubious insight into his affairs, Lex had to admit it was an astute observation. He had been given another chance, although it was more like his third or fourth. Once again he had survived something that seemed un-survivable: the meteor shower, the Porsche accident, months on that island, and now his downfall as writ by his father's hand.
Lex had always known that his father was a dangerous man, one who didn't hesitate to play mind games with his son in his quest to shape him into the ideal heir, but he had never thought those games would ever go so far as Lionel's plan. Perhaps that was his most dangerous failing -- the inability to appreciate just how ruthless and self-serving his father was.
He couldn't afford to make that mistake anymore, not where Lionel was concerned, and not with -- Clark. Ever since Clark had come clean about his secrets, Lex had thought about the danger of his father ever learning even a glimmer of the truth. It was a concern that plagued him, that made him glad that people like Roger Nixon and Sam Phelan were dead. Lex couldn't risk Clark in his war with his father, especially now that he realized there was nothing Lionel Luthor wouldn't do to obtain a goal or bury the truth.
Whatever step he took next would have to accomplish so much that Lex wasn't even sure where to begin. Besides himself and Clark to think about, there was also Chloe Sullivan, who he had promised to protect when she came to him about her deal with Lionel. So far, he hadn't even done a great job of protecting himself, let alone a naive teenager who had sold herself to Lionel for the price of a dream. That Lionel had done so to get information on Clark was troubling; that Chloe had agreed when Clark was supposedly one of her best friends was even more so.
Lex's search through the newspapers Clark had solicitously delivered to him confirmed what he'd said: there was nothing of interest in them, and certainly nothing he could use. No mention of his own crimes -- the hijacked motorist, Morgan Edge's second murder -- or anything related to the Luthor family. Nothing to alert the masses that anything unusual had happened in his world.
He had a few favors he could call in, owed to him by people who weren't necessarily as powerful as his father, but who were powerful enough -- even if his calls would have to reach halfway across the world. Lex still worried, though, that whatever he chose to do wouldn't be enough, and his father would still succeed in crushing him. He didn't like to think about how close he had come this time.
He hadn't admitted it to Clark, but Lex recognized he had actually came to losing his sanity, not all of due to the drugs. One of the few things he still trusted from the mouth of his lying, traitorous shrink was the fact that the his experiences on the island haunted him. Sometimes he even re-dreamed his hallucinations into existence, coming awake with his fingers curled as if around Louis's neck.
Then there had been his flashbacks to Julian.
But Lex couldn't entertain those fears at the moment, not when the battle was still waiting to be waged. And he couldn't let his father win, not when he had such a good reason to want to win, something more than just the dark surge of triumph he had felt when he'd emerged victorious in past skirmishes.
Somewhere in the midst of this nightmare, Lex had gotten the one thing he had always wanted but never thought he could get, an unexpected gift he doubted he deserved. But Clark seemed to want him, too, and if he managed to arrive whole on the other side of the gauntlet waiting for him, Lex had no intention of denying himself his prize.
Lex had stopped depending on other people a long time ago but with Clark, it seemed right. Strange, but right.
With nothing left to do but move forward, Lex finally left the little attic room, down into the back of Trance's shop. The stairs opened into a homey little kitchen, complete with a sink, stove and refrigerator as ancient as the tub a floor above. His hostess sat at the plain wooden table that held a cut vase of delicate orchids. Her fingers were stained with the red-purple juice of the pomegranate seeds she was eating.
"Want one?" she asked, holding out a seed. When he shook his head to decline the offering, she spoke again. "I guess you're leaving now?"
"I think it's time," he said.
She looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, I think it is. You can only hide from the snake in the grass for so long."
"My father is less a snake and more a hydra, spawning heads as fast as I can cut them off."
"You'll be fine," Trance told him. "You're stronger than you think."
"And you know this...how?"
"I'm just guessing." Trance smiled that infuriatingly mysterious smile and chewed on another pomegranate seed. "But I'm right, more often than not."
"Then let's hope you're right this time," Lex told her.
His hand was on the door that would open out into the alley, which he planned to follow until he reached the Talon. With Lana still in the hospital and his father's focus likely in Metropolis, it was closed and the safest place Lex could think of to arrange discreet transportation to get him out of Smallville. He paused before he pushed on it, shooting Trance one last glance. "Aren't you going to wish me luck?"
"I don't need to," she said. "You have something better."
He waited for her answer.
"Destiny, Lex," she said, still smiling. "You have destiny on your side."
The nonsensical words of Clark's peculiar friend; they shouldn't have made Lex feel better.
But they did.
Continue...
Author: Regann
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Rating: PG-13
Disclaimer: I don't own anything; I just play with them.
Summary: At one point in time, there are any number of futures possible, no matter how improbable they may seem. With a little help, Clark and Lex might find a better destiny waiting for them than the ones they're heading toward. Goes AU with the events of S3's "Extinction," and features a special guest appearance from a character from Gene Roddenberry's "Andromeda." Complete in NINE parts, to be posted over the next week or so.
Past Chapters: 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7
Warnings/Notes: I know it sounds crazy, but just go with it. Spoilers for everything in Seasons 1 through 3, but also Season 7's "Artic." Also, this would've never be finished without the crazy support and beta-reading of kaitou_lili!
Light of a Distant Sun, Chapter 8
Except for the shifting shadows from its one window, time seemed to stand still in Trance's attic room.
When Clark woke the next morning, it was to the bright gold of the morning sun pouring in through the filmy curtains, shade raised to let the light fill the quiet space. The bed was empty, sheets tangled, and the quilt had somehow ended up thrown over Clark where he still sat on the floor, a pillow mysteriously wedged under his bowed head. He might have wondered about Lex's whereabouts if not for the tell-tale sound of running water in the adjacent bathroom, little rivulets of warm steam escaping from beneath the closed door.
Clark was smoothing the quilt over the straightened sheets when the bathroom door opened and Lex emerged in a cloud of curling steam. His pale skin was flushed from the heat, and he was dressed in dark slacks and a gray shirt that could've only come from his own closet.
"Where did you get the clothes?" Clark asked, sitting on the edge of the made bed.
"The ever-surprising Ms. Gemini supplied them this morning," Lex said as he finished buttoning the shirt. It reminded Clark of another morning in his loft, which felt like a forever ago. "You're going to have to explain to me why you trust her one of these days."
Clark didn't reply because he knew it was something he'd probably never tell Lex. "How do you feel?"
Lex didn't look at him as he answered; instead, he leaned against the wall and stared out into the bright morning sun. "Like my father had me driven insane to cover up the fact he murdered his own parents." He shook his head. "Just when I thought he couldn't get any worse."
"What are you going to do now?"
"Honestly? I don't have a clue." Lex sighed. "Morgan Edge is gone, and so is all the proof I had on my father. And I'm certain he's done his usual thorough job at cleaning up behind what's happened the last few days. I'm back where I'm started."
"You have to do something." The thought that anyone, including Lionel Luthor, could go unpunished for what he had made Lex endure was terrifying to Clark, almost as horrible as the moment he had learned that Jor-El expected him to conquer the planet.
"I know. I just don't seem to have many options at the moment." Lex paused. "Right now, I think murder might be the best way to go."
"Lex."
He glanced toward Clark at the sound of his name. "It's a viable solution, maybe the only one I have if my father has convinced the world that I've gone crazy in my absence."
"Trance has been monitoring the newspapers," Clark told him, proud of his forethought. "You haven't even made the Inquisitor."
"Well, thank goodness for that," Lex drawled, his tone bored and sarcastic. He shook his head. "Ignore me. It seems my sense of humor didn't make the same miraculous recovery my sanity did."
"I think you're allowed," Clark said, rising to his feet. He moved until he stood next to him by the window. "You don't have to apologize for being angry."
"You would say that," Lex said. He pulled himself upright and turned so he was looking at Clark, his face illuminated by the sun. "But I do, and not just for that. I'm sorry I doubted you, Clark. That I could think..."
There was such regret in Lex -- in his voice, in the tight lines of his face -- Clark wanted to comfort him, but stopped himself just before he touched him. He settled for words. "This honesty thing is new. For both of us. It's not surprising that you could maybe think something like that, with everything that was going on."
It was Lex who moved closer, his eyes like quicksilver in the sunlight. "There's no one I trust more than you. I hope you know that."
Clark nodded. "I'm sorry, too. For the lies, from the beginning."
"I think you've more than made up for it," Lex told him softly. "You've gone above and beyond what any man could ask of a friend."
Clark remembered being on red kryptonite, how the surge of freedom it had given him had also bestowed confidence, a giddy recklessness that left him unafraid of repercussions. What he felt in that moment was close to that, except there was fear, only it was outweighed by the need to be truthful for once, all consequences damned.
He licked his lips nervously and asked the question that had been tripping through his mind since that last night in his barn. "Am I really just your friend, Lex?"
Lex watched him with a frightening intensity, every muscle in his face suddenly still. He opened his mouth as if to speak, then seemed to change his mind. Clark was startled to feel Lex's hand on his shoulder -- not a grip, but a caress as his thumb brushed over the hollow of his throat. "I don't have the words for what you are to me."
In that moment, Clark wondered how he had ever mistook kryptonite poisoning for the stirrings of love; what he felt was nothing like how it had been when Lana's meteorite necklace had churned up in his insides, this bright, expansive feeling that started in his chest and spread like honey, that left him breathless with anticipation.
Lex's hands came up to his face, leaving a trail of fire on his skin, and he tugged Clark's mouth down to meet his, and then Lex was kissing him -- not hesitant, but careful, achingly gentle in the way he let his lips explore Clark's. Clark leaned into Lex, into the kiss, mouth moving against his as his hands slid beneath Lex's untucked shirt and over skin that still held the faint heat of the shower.
Clark was being careful, too, with the way his hands ghosted over Lex's back as he pulled him closer, but then Lex's fingers sank into his hair as he deepened the kiss and only years of ingrained restraint kept Clark from leaving bruises as he stopped thinking about anything other than the fact that he was kissing Lex.
It was Lex who finally broke away, his chest rising sharply as he took in several quick breaths. He kept his hands on Clark, though, and his lips brushed over Clark's cheek as he rested against him. "Maybe I was wrong," he said. "Maybe I have gone crazy."
Such an amused, indulgent tone; Clark felt its answer in his own laughter-tinged voice. "Because you like me?"
"Because I've given into a temptation I've fought for years." Lex pulled back a little more, only to touch his thumb to Clark's bottom lip, sliding the rough pad over its swollen curve. "It speaks to a horrible lapse in self-control, not to mention judgment."
"Maybe it just means you're finally coming to your senses," Clark said, watching the way the sunlight played across Lex's face.
"This is not indicative of sanity." But Lex was smiling as he said it.
"Years?" he asked. That admission had surprised Clark, made him want to cast himself back through every memory he had of Lex since they had met, looking for signs he might have missed that hinted at what they were becoming.
"You've always been very important to me, Clark." It wasn't exactly an answer, except that it was the kind Lex often gave. He further distracted Clark with another kiss, one that left him so addled he almost missed what Lex said after they separated. "And that's why I don't want you involved in whatever happens next."
Clark managed to frown through his haze of happiness. "It's a little late for that, Lex."
"No, it's not," Lex argued. His hands -- spread flat against Clark's chest -- curled to grip his biceps. "I want you to go home. Tell them you've been looking for me but couldn't find me. Then stay there until this is over."
"And what are you going to do?" Clark didn't like the idea of Lex sending him away. The worry he'd lived with before started to gnaw at his gut.
"I'm not sure yet," Lex conceded. "But this still isn't your battle."
His own hold tightened. "Lex..."
"No, Clark," Lex said, cutting him off. His face was stern, eyes glittering with intensity. "We've just established that you're important to me -- too important for me to let you become any more of a pawn in my father's sick games." The gentle brush of lips against his was in marked contrast to the steel of Lex's words. "Especially with the secrets you have. It's too dangerous."
"I'm not going to win on this, am I?" he sighed. Clark realized that Lex was right, that he did have secrets that meant he needed to stay off Lionel's radar as much as possible, something he hadn't managed so far. And he knew his parents had to be worried, after he had disappeared so many days ago.
"You get your way more than you should, anyway," Lex told him with a smile in his voice. "Better luck next time."
Despite his acquiescence, Clark wasn't quite ready to deal with the outside world. He took the initiative and pressed his mouth to Lex's, then let his lips slide down his chin to Lex's pale throat, a trail of toothy nips soothed by his tongue. "When do you want me to leave?" he murmured in between biting caresses.
Lex sounded breathless as he tried to answer, a fact that made Clark feel smug. "I guess...a little while longer won't matter."
Their kisses grew more desperate, more hungry, and Clark held on as tightly as he dared. He worried about what would happen to both of them once they left the quiet haven of the attic room, if the connection they had made would survive the stresses that waited.
But each touch of Lex's skin against his own was a promise that they would endure and Clark let himself be seduced -- by Lex, by his touch, and by the gold glow of the morning sun that surrounded them with its light.
**
Despite his agreement to Lex's request, Clark remained reluctant to leave. Lex was both touched and annoyed by Clark's desire to stay, but his own impulse to protect him won out and he finally demanded his departure. As much as he wanted Clark with him, his friend was safer at home, and Lex had plans to make and fathers to plot against, both of which were easier to do without his living, breathing conscience at his elbow.
"Clark's gone," Trance said as she stepped into the attic room a few hours later.
"Finally, you mean?" Lex asked, barely looking up from the papers in his hand. He was sitting in the middle on the room's bed, stacks of printed newspaper strewn across its surface, a legal pad balanced on his bended knee.
"He's concerned," Trance said. Her statement was just that -- a declaration, no undercurrent of emotion coloring the words to give Lex a clue as to her opinion on it.
"He would do better to worry about himself," Lex told her. "I have my own future well in hand."
"Really?" There was amusement in her voice.
"I will," Lex corrected, sparing her one chilly glance. "I'll be out of here soon."
"Take your time," she said. "You can stay as long as you like."
Lex wished he was the kind who would be content to hide, to disappear into the night and wait out his father's threat. If he was, his next steps would be easy instead of the quagmire of power plays he needed them to be.
In response to Lex's silence, Trance grinned, a thoroughly mischievous expression on her impish face. "Not such a tempting offer now that Clark's gone, is it?"
Lex chose to ignore her insinuation and asked the question that had plagued him since Clark had informed them of their location. "I'm not still not clear as to why you're helping me in the first place."
Her teasing expression faded a little. "Clark's a friend. He needed someone and I was glad to be there."
"That's your only reason?"
"No," she said.
"So you have others?"
"Yes," Trance said.
"Care to share?"
"No," she said again. At his look, she added, "They're not bad reasons, they're just mine. You know how that is, don't you?"
It dawned on Lex that for all his suspicions of Trance Gemini, he had still underestimated her. Her smile told him the realization was written all over his face. "Well, your assurances have certainly put my mind at ease."
Trance rolled her eyes at his sarcasm and reached for the door. "You've been given a second chance, Lex. Let's hope you don't waste it."
While he didn't appreciate a stranger's dubious insight into his affairs, Lex had to admit it was an astute observation. He had been given another chance, although it was more like his third or fourth. Once again he had survived something that seemed un-survivable: the meteor shower, the Porsche accident, months on that island, and now his downfall as writ by his father's hand.
Lex had always known that his father was a dangerous man, one who didn't hesitate to play mind games with his son in his quest to shape him into the ideal heir, but he had never thought those games would ever go so far as Lionel's plan. Perhaps that was his most dangerous failing -- the inability to appreciate just how ruthless and self-serving his father was.
He couldn't afford to make that mistake anymore, not where Lionel was concerned, and not with -- Clark. Ever since Clark had come clean about his secrets, Lex had thought about the danger of his father ever learning even a glimmer of the truth. It was a concern that plagued him, that made him glad that people like Roger Nixon and Sam Phelan were dead. Lex couldn't risk Clark in his war with his father, especially now that he realized there was nothing Lionel Luthor wouldn't do to obtain a goal or bury the truth.
Whatever step he took next would have to accomplish so much that Lex wasn't even sure where to begin. Besides himself and Clark to think about, there was also Chloe Sullivan, who he had promised to protect when she came to him about her deal with Lionel. So far, he hadn't even done a great job of protecting himself, let alone a naive teenager who had sold herself to Lionel for the price of a dream. That Lionel had done so to get information on Clark was troubling; that Chloe had agreed when Clark was supposedly one of her best friends was even more so.
Lex's search through the newspapers Clark had solicitously delivered to him confirmed what he'd said: there was nothing of interest in them, and certainly nothing he could use. No mention of his own crimes -- the hijacked motorist, Morgan Edge's second murder -- or anything related to the Luthor family. Nothing to alert the masses that anything unusual had happened in his world.
He had a few favors he could call in, owed to him by people who weren't necessarily as powerful as his father, but who were powerful enough -- even if his calls would have to reach halfway across the world. Lex still worried, though, that whatever he chose to do wouldn't be enough, and his father would still succeed in crushing him. He didn't like to think about how close he had come this time.
He hadn't admitted it to Clark, but Lex recognized he had actually came to losing his sanity, not all of due to the drugs. One of the few things he still trusted from the mouth of his lying, traitorous shrink was the fact that the his experiences on the island haunted him. Sometimes he even re-dreamed his hallucinations into existence, coming awake with his fingers curled as if around Louis's neck.
Then there had been his flashbacks to Julian.
But Lex couldn't entertain those fears at the moment, not when the battle was still waiting to be waged. And he couldn't let his father win, not when he had such a good reason to want to win, something more than just the dark surge of triumph he had felt when he'd emerged victorious in past skirmishes.
Somewhere in the midst of this nightmare, Lex had gotten the one thing he had always wanted but never thought he could get, an unexpected gift he doubted he deserved. But Clark seemed to want him, too, and if he managed to arrive whole on the other side of the gauntlet waiting for him, Lex had no intention of denying himself his prize.
Lex had stopped depending on other people a long time ago but with Clark, it seemed right. Strange, but right.
With nothing left to do but move forward, Lex finally left the little attic room, down into the back of Trance's shop. The stairs opened into a homey little kitchen, complete with a sink, stove and refrigerator as ancient as the tub a floor above. His hostess sat at the plain wooden table that held a cut vase of delicate orchids. Her fingers were stained with the red-purple juice of the pomegranate seeds she was eating.
"Want one?" she asked, holding out a seed. When he shook his head to decline the offering, she spoke again. "I guess you're leaving now?"
"I think it's time," he said.
She looked at him for a moment, then nodded. "Yes, I think it is. You can only hide from the snake in the grass for so long."
"My father is less a snake and more a hydra, spawning heads as fast as I can cut them off."
"You'll be fine," Trance told him. "You're stronger than you think."
"And you know this...how?"
"I'm just guessing." Trance smiled that infuriatingly mysterious smile and chewed on another pomegranate seed. "But I'm right, more often than not."
"Then let's hope you're right this time," Lex told her.
His hand was on the door that would open out into the alley, which he planned to follow until he reached the Talon. With Lana still in the hospital and his father's focus likely in Metropolis, it was closed and the safest place Lex could think of to arrange discreet transportation to get him out of Smallville. He paused before he pushed on it, shooting Trance one last glance. "Aren't you going to wish me luck?"
"I don't need to," she said. "You have something better."
He waited for her answer.
"Destiny, Lex," she said, still smiling. "You have destiny on your side."
The nonsensical words of Clark's peculiar friend; they shouldn't have made Lex feel better.
But they did.
Continue...