FIC: Must Be Dreaming Chapter Twelve
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!!
Thanks to herohunter for the quick beta! ♥
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
Like a child’s finger-painting, the sky was still smeared with purples and oranges when the black Lamborghini drove up to the Kent farm in a cloud of dust. The air was cool despite the predicted forecast that the day for a scorching, real Smallville summer day.
“Where do you think she is?”
“Probably in the barn. Honestly, I’m surprised that it’s come to this.”
“Me too. I thought Dad would’ve let Maddie go with Lena.”
“Since when is your father the one to ask permission? I’d had the impression that it was the other way around.”
“It usually is, but Dad’s been… different since he got back. More laid back, and he doesn’t push Mom like he used to. I don’t get them lately.”
A strong hand touched the jean covered thigh. It seemed small in comparison. “They’ll work it out, Clark. They always do.”
“I know.”
Clark leaned over and pulled a resisting Lex into a hug. Lex was getting used to being embraced by his friend again, but Clark was much more affectionate than he had been even as a fifteen year old, so it was definitely an adjustment.
I should be pregnant all the time, if this is the treatment I get, Lex thought to himself, looking out on the window and rapping his fingers along the glass. The last time he’d been awake on the farm this early, he’d been trying to prove to one Jonathan Kent that Lex Luthor could muck out horse hooey with the best of them. “Come on, Clark. I want to check on her.”
Clark nodded and got out of the driver’s seat. He’d taken the keys this morning because Lex had looked like he still needed some sleep after the helicopter, and sure enough, Lex had slept most of the way there.
“Do you need to eat?”
“Do you?” Lex countered.
Clark smirked and ignored Lex’s tone. “I’d eat this Lamb if I were any hungrier.”
The statement won Clark a chuckle as Lex passed him on his way to the barn. Clark followed closely, watching Lex’s hips move, and Lex was not unaware of this. Clark had been doing it all morning, watching him. Waiting. Looking as though, if Lex suddenly dropped, Clark would be more that ready to swoop him up and rush him to safety.
It was sweet, if odd.
The corner of Lex’s mouth twitched when he caught sight of the red couch up in the loft. It was just the top edge of it, but it reminded him of his latest weird, wild dream, at least the part that had been good. Lex gripped the railing of the stairs before going up and let his eyes fall closed. Yes. She was up there, breathing, sleeping peacefully. He hardly wanted to disturb her, lest she be reminded of what she lost and become upset again.
“You okay?” Clark asked worriedly. His hand rested on Lex’s shoulder. Lex looked up at him silently, and together they ascended.
At the top of the stairs, the sun shone more brightly, it seemed, through the large loft window than it had outside. The light hit two faces on the couch, bathing them in gold. Lex stepped forward and looked over them.
“Oh, Maddie’s with her,” Lex whispered. Clark tilted his head back a bit and walked over to them, kneeling by the couch and touching his huge hand to her small back. The little girl looked up and smiled groggily.
“Hi, Clark. See? I promised I’d protect her,” Maddie whispered.
“I see that. You’re doing a great job. We wanted to take you back to the castle. You up for that?” Clark asked gently
Maddie nodded energetically, then slowly moved away from Lena’s sleeping form. “I’ll go get my bag, okay? Is Domovoi out there still?”
“I didn’t see him, but I’m certain that he is,” Lex replied. Maddie walked quickly but quietly over to him and gave him a hug. His hand moved over her sleep-mussed braids. “Thank you for staying with her. It’s very hard for her right now.”
“I know. It hurts so much to lose someone. She feels bad now because she didn’t want him at first. I told her it wasn’t her fault, but she’s having a hard time. She really wants you here, Lex, but I think she’s scared she’ll hurt you.” Maddie nuzzled her face into his blue sweater.
“We talked about that, a little at least. Lena and I will work it out. Don’t you worry.” Lex leaned down just a bit to kiss the top of her head. “Go on.”
Watching Maddie jog down the stairs for a moment, Lex then turned back to the couch and walked around Clark to sit on the side of the cushion. Two long, slender fingers trailed along the side of Lena’s hair, and Lex smiled as she moved her hand to brush them away. He could almost feel when her awareness touched him.
“Lex?” She whispered his name before opening her eyes.
Lex bit his lip because his eyes began to sting immediately.
“Oh, baby,” Lena murmured.
Lex shook his head and wrapped her up in his arms. “I’m here. We’re here, and we’re taking you and Maddie home, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, resting her head on his shoulder. Clark reached up and began rubbing her back. She looked at him momentarily, then closed her eyes again. “I’m glad you boys are getting along.”
Clark chuckled. “Here and there. When I can keep my mouth shut.”
“Oh, Clark. That’s the best thing you do. No matter what you say, it’ll be the wrong thing.”
“Oh, thanks,” Clark replied sarcastically. “I’ll just sew my lips shut.”
“That’s just how it is.”
“Pregnant person rule number seven,” Lex told him lightly, hoping to keep him from sulking.
“You skipped five and six!” Clark complained.
“What are you boys talking about?” Lena asked, lifting her head.
Lex lifted his brows a little. “It’s… I’ll explain later.”
“Let’s go home.” Lena smiled and rubbed his arm.
“Yes. We have to go home, so that Clark can go to school,” Lex said pointedly.
Clark rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll go get my books.”
Lex and Lena stood, supporting one another as they came down from the loft. Lex felt much better with her in his arms, even if he could feel a tinge of her sadness on the edge of his consciousness. She was fairly calm, which was good.
When they reached the Lamborghini, Lex touched her shoulders. “I want you to stay here. I’m going inside to have a talk with Mr. and Mrs. Kent.”
Lena’s wide mouth pinched into a small, curious pout.
“Stay,” he repeated firmly. He pointed at her before turning towards the farmhouse and taking a deep, determined breath.
Clark looked back at Lena and met her eyes. Then he was startled as Domovoi appeared by the car silently. Clark blinked, then followed Lex into the house.
“Remember not to wear Lena out, okay? Lex either,” Jonathan was telling Maddie in a warm, tender voice.
“I know, I know,” Maddie replied. Her head whipped around when she heard Lex rapping on the screen door. “Lex! I’m coming.”
“Go on to the car, Maddie. I want to talk to the Kents for a moment.”
Clark’s eyes widened and shifted from his father to Lex. He reached out for Maddie, who anxiously went into his arms and wouldn’t let go.
“Lex,” he began softly.
“Clark, she slept in the barn,” Lex cut him off tersely.
Jonathan crossed his arms defensively. “She went out there on her own, and she had two adults with her. Clark slept in that barn all the time.”
“That disturbing image aside, I was speaking of Lena, not Maddie. The woman just suffered a violent attack and a miscarriage.” Lex’s volume was rising slowly. “Now I don’t know what your wife’s problem is, but this is utterly unacceptable. I sent Maddie over here to begin with because I trusted the both of you to take care of her and assumed that she would leave your care when I asked-“
“Now, Lex-“
“I really don’t understand why Lena should have had to isolate herself from the people in this house, who either could have given her hospitality or allowed her to go home with the child of whom I have custody!” Lex glared at Clark when his hand touched his right shoulder.
Clark shook his head. “Lex, calm down! It’s okay now.”
“No, it isn’t,” Lex argued. “How do you think your mother would have liked it to be trapped somewhere with cruel, judgmental people directly after she had lost a child?”
“That is enough,” Jonathan boomed. “Listen here, Lex, I’ve been pretty good to you over the past couple of months, but we don’t have to take this from you!”
“Dad, don’t start,” Clark warned. He ruffled his hair and groaned, pulling Lex backward. Somehow the two of them seemed to have begun creeping closer to each other. His voice softened. “Lex, stop. Please, let’s just go.”
“Clark, I cannot and will not allow Lena to take this kind of abuse.”
“She wasn’t that badly off-“ Jonathan protested.
Lex fixed his gaze on Jonathan once again. “When I got on the phone with her, she burst into tears within a minute. Attack me all you like, Mr. Kent. Extend that offer to your wife. Call me whatever you get it into your head to call me, sneer at me behind closed doors, and smear my name all over town, but you had better think twice about doing the same to my family!”
“Your- what? Your family? Maddie-“
“Lena,” Lex snapped.
Jonathan’s arms dropped to his sides in surprise. He shook his head. “Lex, I didn’t know, but I promise you, we didn’t throw her out of the house or talk badly to her.”
When Lex moved forward to argue again, Clark’s arm slipped around Lex’s shoulder and pulled him to his chest.
“Don’t make me hose you down. I know how you feel about her. But think about your stress levels, please,” Clark whispered into Lex’s ear. Lex made a sour, sulky face but made no effort to get away. Clark was right, and it wasn’t really Jonathan he was angry at, although the man should have made Martha let his sister go. Clark looked up to his father and said quietly, “Lena’s his sister. Could you get Mom, so we can have a little talk?”
Lex touched Clark’s forearm lightly and looked up to him gratefully once Jonathan had given them a brisk nod and gone off to find his wife. “Thank you.”
“I’ll take a thanks from her.” Clark moved his hand down to tickle Lex’s belly.
“Ah!” Lex wiggled away, and Maddie giggled.
Martha and Lena walked into the kitchen at opposite ends within seconds of one another. After staring at one another for what seemed like a long time, Lena spoke first, touching Lex’s arm. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Go back to the car.”
“Not a chance. Not unless you’re coming with me,” she replied resolutely.
“Maybe I can take care of this,” Clark offered.
Martha looked around. “What is going on?”
“The boys want to talk to you, hon. Please, just listen,” Jonathan asked, rubbing her shoulders.
Martha gave Lena a displeased look, and Lena let out a noise of frustration. “What is your problem? I haven’t done anything to you!”
“I know enough about you to have nothing to do with you,” Martha replied coldly, lifting her chin in defiance. Jonathan blinked in disbelief.
“Mom!” Clark protested. Lex felt himself tensing from head to toe. Of course what Lena had been experiencing hadn’t been overt. She could feel how much Martha hated her no matter how well the woman faked a smile.
“I have to say, Mrs. Kent, considering the attitudes of your husband and child, I would have thought you’d have a little more respect for other women than to just go around judging everyone like that.” Lena stepped closer to Martha, with her eyes narrowed and her jaw set.
Lex looked at Clark anxiously. This could not go well. “Maybe we should all-“
“I don’t have to have respect for what women like you do,” Martha replied to Lena sharply.
Jonathan ran his hands over his face. “Martha-“
“And I don’t think that children should be entrusted to the care of common whores,” Martha continued.
The room fell silent and all three men looked at one another, trying to decide how to defuse this situation.
“Lemme ask you. What makes you so sure that I’m a whore?” Lena asked, turning to the older woman with a severe expression. More severe than Lex had ever seen her really wear, which in itself was a little frightening. He’d wondered what it would take to get Lena angry. “Nevermind. Don’t answer that. I know.”
Martha rolled her eyes. “There are things in this world that you don’t mess with. Things that are sacred, and women like you care more about getting paid than the damage you cause.”
Lex stepped forward to protect Lena, but her hand swiveled around to block him. “Don’t, Lexie. I got this.” She glared at Martha. “What I do? Lemme tell you about what I do. You think I fuck for money?”
Maddie’s eyes went wide, and she looked at Lena in shock. Clark knelt down and put his arms around her shoulders, whispering, “Shhh…”
“I don’t have to, Martha! I will never have to fuck a man, or a woman for money. You know why?” Lena put a hand on her hip and shook her head, pointing at Martha. “Because I know how you feel. I know how you feel. I know you have no respect for me. I know I disgust you. I know my accent grates on your delicate nerves. I know you have pity for me. And I know you’ve had a miscarriage, too.”
Martha licked her lips and adjusted her shoulders in distress.
“Same way, I know what every person who comes up to me feels. Men, women, black, white, brown, rich, poor, meta, or normie. I know. I know what the girls on the street corner near Solara feel, and I know how Anglique felt when her boyfriend left him after she finally popped enough rich men to afford the surgery, and I know how scared they get and how some of them live off of it and some of them hate it. I know they don’t want your pity either.” Lena dropped her hands and took a deep breath. “ I’m lucky, though. I’m never gonna have to put on that red light because I’ve got this gift that lets me do so much. And that’s a privilege, and I know that. I wish you did.”
Martha crossed her arms. “I know of people who have paid you to have sex with them. Just because you aren’t whoring on a street corner doesn’t make it any reprehensible that you slept with a married man.”
“Oh, please. You’ve cheated on your husband. Don’t look at me like you haven’t skated the sacred bonds of marriage yourself,” Lena said, narrowing her eyes. Lex could feel Clark tensing up behind him, and he turned slightly to rub his shoulder.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Martha said flatly.
“I know how you feel! I know you’re lying. And I know your husband knows. You protest too much, honey. But for the sake of clearing the air, I’ll just lay this out there: I like to help people, and I can feel them, so what I do is actually closer to being a counselor than a prostitute. Sometimes I have sex with the people I’m helping. Sometimes not. It depends on my relationship to them, and I’ll do it with men or women; it doesn’t matter. If we have a connection, then I’ll help.” Lena looked at Lex. “Sometimes the connection doesn’t mean sex, but we get pretty close.” She looked back at Martha. “And sometimes they give me money, or pay my rent, because we’re friends, and we’re both giving each other a lot. I have a lot of friends. It’s easy to do when you see people from the inside. But honey, they aren’t paying me for the privilege of my pussy. And I’m not going to take your attitude. So you can cut that out right now. I have respect for myself, and nothing you can say will take that away.”
Maddie wiggled in Clark’s arms, and he let her go. She came up to Lena’s side, and Lena wrapped her arm around the girl and petted her head with the other hand. Martha looked away, then up at Jonathan who was pressing his lips together and avoiding looking at Clark.
After a moment, Jonathan cleared his throat gruffly. “Alright, then. I hope all of you are done because this fighting is over.”
“Jona-“
“Martha! This is about you and me, and you’ve got to stop this. C’mon. “ Jonathan stepped closer to her and then pulled his wife into a tight hug.
“Mom, you didn’t cheat on Dad,” Clark protested, sounding like an upset fifteen year old. When they didn’t answer for a moment, and his mother began to sob into Jonathan’s shoulder, Clark cried out again, “You didn’t!”
“I did it first, Clark,” Jonathan boomed, turning his head to look at his son. “Only your mother can’t forgive herself.”
“You didn’t fall in love with her,” Martha muttered into Jonathan’s shoulder.
Lena sighed and put her hand over her chest, looking overwhelmed and a little frustrated. Lex came up to her and put his arm around her shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s leave them.”
Clark looked at Lex, utterly lost. Lex was leaving? He looked between the three of them for a moment, then turned back to his parents. Lex would be outside when he got to the bottom of this. There were probably way too many emotions in the room for Lena to handle right now.
“Mom? Dad? What’s going on?” Clark asked once they’d gone outside.
Jonathan began rubbing Martha’s back. “I’ve not always been a good husband, Clark. I wish I were better, and God, with your mother, I really tried. I met her when I was married to Nell, and… I should have divorced her before I started seeing Martha, but I didn’t.”
Martha pulled away from him and sat in a chair, still sobbing. Clark went over to her and put a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “So when you two fell in love at Met U…?”
“I left Nell for her,” Jonathan explained. “Nell’s never forgiven me, and I can’t say I blame her.” He rubbed his hands together and sighed. “But…”
“You cheated on Mom,” Clark said, his voice cracking.
“A couple of times. And she… she had her attic, where she went whenever she found out. I didn’t know. Thought I was smoother than that.” Jonathan pulled up his chair. “But she was smart. And she knew. You should have left me.”
“I couldn’t,” Martha whispered. Clark grabbed a tissue off the table and gave it to her. He couldn’t help but agree with his father, though, that she should have left.
Jonathan looked at his son seriously. “Well, you can’t expect people to change, Clark. Most of the time they can’t. But I did.” He reached over and took Martha’s hand. “Before we found you, your mother got pregnant, and it was what she had always wanted, and I… I knew I had to be a good father. I stopped drinking, almost completely. There’s an AA meeting at the local Methodist church, and though I wasn’t doing it compulsively, that helped a lot to begin with. We went organic. I stopped with the other women completely, especially Nell.”
“Oh, God, Dad!” Clark complained.
“Then, we lost the baby. We kept trying, but we couldn’t get her pregnant again. I was afraid that it was me, a little bit. That I’d been so bad for her, that I didn’t deserve to be a father.” Jonathan rubbed his mouth. “So I just tried to be the best husband I could be. Then we found you, and it changed everything.”
Clark took a breath and tried to wrap his mind around this. He couldn’t believe that his father had been such… an asshole. How could he have done that to his mother? And he’d though… no wonder his mother was such a nutcase about the ‘sanctity’ of marriage. “You never did it again, did you Dad?“ Clark pleaded.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Martha said quickly.
“Dad!” Clark cried, a tear running down his cheek. This could not be the idyllic family he’d grown up with.
“Desirée,” Jonathan said quietly.
“Oh.” Clark winced. He licked his lips and looked at his mother, who had stopped crying, but was sitting there quietly.
Jonathan leaned forward and took her hand, lifting it to his lips for a kiss. “Honey, I’m so sorry.”
“She had powers. It wasn’t your fault. The woman basically raped you, Jonathan.”
“Well, the hurt she stirred up came from hurt I’d already caused. I can never apologize enough for that,” Jonathan said firmly.
“It doesn’t make what I did right,” she whispered. “It doesn’t make what I was doing while you were gone right, either.”
“You thought I was dead. I can’t praise your taste in men, but I’m not going to fault you for being with someone else while I’m dead. That’s just not fair to you.”
Martha pressed her lips together, and a few more tears trickled down her face. “He confuses me.”
“I know, baby. I know.” Jonathan leaned forward and pulled her into another hug. “But we’ll pull through it, just like we have before, yeah?”
She nodded, taking a few shaky breaths. Clark pulled away from them both and stood in stunned silence. Who were these people who called themselves his parents? The ones who had taught him how horrible it was to drink, to cheat, and to hurt other people? The ones who had always preached tolerance and caring towards other people?
“I’ve got to go,” Clark muttered.
Jonathan looked up. “I’m sorry, Clark. We’re just people. We’re flawed, and we’ve both screwed up.” He shook his head. “We just try to hold onto each other, and not make the same mistakes again. After your mom’s one affair, that was the end of it, for good, as long as we were together. Even though… I think she really was in love with him.”
“He manipulated me. And I fell for it. I always let him do that, Jonathan. I don’t know why I keep letting him,” Martha said, looking up at her husband in askance.
Jonathan touched her chin. “Because he’s a slimy little snake, and it’s what he does.”
“I’ve… got to think about this.” Clark rubbed the back of his neck. “I love you guys, but… I’ve got to go.”
He leaned over and gave both of his parents a hug, then headed out of the house, spotting Lex and the girls by the car. Lena and Maddie. Lex hand his hand on his stomach as he watched them, rubbing thoughtfully. Clark picked up his pace and came up to Lex’s side.
“You okay?” Lex asked, touching Clark’s bicep gently.
“That was intense,” Clark muttered.
“That was scary,” Maddie complained.
“My parents are adulterers,” Clark said, looking down at her.
“Your parents are people, Clark,” Lena said softly. “They really do love each other. And you. If you need the reminder.”
“That doesn’t make my dad cheating all the time okay.”
“No. It doesn’t.” Lena shook her head. “If it’s all the same to you guys, I really need to go home.” She held up a hand. “Around you three is okay, but my head is about to burst.”
“Yeah, I think the rave is off,” Lex said dryly. “Let’s get going. Come with us, Clark? You can borrow the chopper back to Metropolis.” He took Clark’s hand and swung it a bit.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll come. I just need to get out of here for a while.” Clark shook his head, still a little dazed at the enormity of what he’d just learned. “Can’t believe my mom would…”
“I was surprised you didn’t know about that, Clark. Though you were only sixteen at the time,” Lex pointed out, pressing the button on his keys to unlock the doors.
“You knew? God, I feel dumb.” Clark opened the backseat, then went over to Lena and gave her a hug.
She stretched her neck up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You’re gonna be alright. I don’t think they’ll get divorced, and they’ve been through so much. I think that’s pretty telling. Most people these days would split, or just keep hurting each other. Your mom just can’t get over her guilt. It’s tied up with one of her miscarriages, I think. Maybe she thinks it’s her fault for cheating.”
“There is no way that could be true,” Lex said.
“First hand experience, Lexie. You don’t have to be rational about why a miscarriage happened.” Lena let go of Clark and sighed. Clark could tell that she was still very much in pain, but it was good to see her out of the hospital, in any case.
Lex nodded and ushered Maddie into the back seat. “Regardless of how weird it would have been for me and you, Clark, I wish that child had made it.”
“My baby brother? Why would it have been weird for us?” Clark frowned.
“Well, us sharing a brother-“ Lex stopped himself, paled, then moved to get in the car.
Clark grabbed his arm. “No. No. My mother did not have an affair with your father!”
Lena reached up and touched his hand with a meaningful look. Clark dropped it, but continued to stare at Lex, who pressed his lips into a line and sighed. “I’m sorry, Clark. I tried to warn her to stay away from him.”
“I’ll kill him,” Clark said.
Lena encircled his bicep with her arms. “No, you won’t, sweetie. You’ll come with us for breakfast, then you’ll go to school, and then you’ll forgive your mom for letting that snake bastard slime his way into her pants.”
“Oh my, Goooood,” Clark groaned as she pushed him down into the backseat. “I’m scarred for life!”
Lex and Lena shared a look, then got in themselves. Once inside, Lex rubbed Clark’s thigh, looking at him sympathetically. “When you get off school, stay the night with us. I’ll call your father so he’ll know where you are. We’ll help you relax and think things through.”
“And give you ice cream,” Lena insisted. “And maybe some movies. And dancing. I brought Twister over. Only Lex can’t play.”
“You’re so cruel,” Lex told her, with a frown, although he was clearly joking.
“Or we could have Lex play, and take pictures of him trying to do it,” she laughed. Maddie giggled.
Clark laid his head back on the headrest and took a deep breath. “I love you guys.”
Lex hugged him around the shoulders before nodding to Domovoi, who turned the key in the ignition and headed for the castle.
***
Rapping gently against the frame of his professor’s door, Clark peeked inside the terminally cluttered office with all the confidence of a baby mouse before a lion. “Uh… Dr. Jorgenson?”
“Hello, Clark. Come in. I was beginning to think you were one of our mid-semester losses,” she said, motioning to the chair in front of her desk. It was a small office, but she had managed to squeeze no less than three bookshelves stuffed with books, a mini-refrigerator, and a microwave in there.
Clark set his bookbag aside and looked at her curiously. “Losses?”
“Inevitably, we always have students who disappear off the face of the planet during the course of the semester.” Dr. Jorgenson leaned forward and tapped the edge of her pen on her desk. “So, what’s your story, Clark?”
“I… well, it wasn’t my family emergency, but my best friend’s sister lost her baby… I mean she was attacked, stabbed, and then had a miscarriage. We’re lucky she’s still alive,” Clark told her in a halting voice. “He needed me around, and that’s why I haven’t been to class.”
Dr. Jorgenson pressed her lips into a fine line and looked on Clark’s face for a moment. “Well, I can’t excuse for that, but if you want to try to catch back up-“
“I do. I really do, Le- uh… my friend paid my tuition and he’s really trying to get me to stay in college this time,” Clark explained. “I’ll do whatever I have to do.”
“This time? What happened last time?” she leaned her temple against her fingers and looked at him with interest.
“Last time? I… my father died. Kind of. It was weird; the hospital told us he was dead, and it turned out they had him mixed up with someone else.” He pushed the words out, knowing how feeble they sounded. “He’s better now, but at the time, I had to drop out to make sure the farm stayed running.”
“It sounds like you spend a lot of time taking care of your family,” she mused. “I mean that your friend must be that close if he needed you by his side for support when his sister was still in the hospital.”
Clark sighed. “He is. He’s had a rough time lately, and that’s just the most recent thing.”
“You’re a smart boy. I can tell this from how quickly you pick up on things in my class. I feel like a lot of this is review-” Dr. Jorgenson sat up straight and ran her fingers through her graying blond hair before she spoke. “-which is troubling because you flunked this class at A&M.”
“Oh, but that wasn’t… I had a lot going on that semester.”
“Clark, let me let you in on a secret about college.” She leaned forward and looked over her glasses. “There’s a lot going on every semester.”
“No, I mean, my mother got sick, and then my dad was running for senate, and my girlfriend and I were having problems-“
“Clark, this semester seems to have a lot going on, too, doesn’t it? Your friend’s problems become your own. What else?”
Clark twisted his lips to the side a little. “Honestly, my friend is going to have a baby and his father is crazy, and my parents got into an explosive fight with my best friend and his sister and have apparently had the hardest time not cheating on each other, especially since she thought he was dead for part of the year and hooked up with the guy who got her pregnant with the baby she miscarried a few years ago and-“ He sighed. “My life is a soap opera.”
Jorgenson smiled. “It sounds like it has been. But, Clark, you can’t let their problems interfere with your education. I know that you love them, and you want to be there for these people. That’s a given for many students, but you’re going to have to learn balance between the different facets of your life. We all have different sides to ourselves. I remember in grad school, I would go to class and be a student. Then on another day, I would dress up in a suit and be a TA. Then the next day, in another outfit, I worked at the library. I went home, took off my suit, and became Mommy. You become fragmented, and you have to decide what is important to you.” She gave him a pleading look. “And that does include your future goals and things you need for yourself. Maybe you feel like you’re being selfish, but some time is required for those, and I think at the very least, time to get to class isn’t too much to ask.”
“But I didn’t mean… it was an emergency. I had to be there for him. I couldn’t not,” Clark argued.
“Yes, but I’m telling you this for next time. I will let you make this up. I like having you in my class, but there are plenty of professors who don’t have the time to work with students who already have a life. Families, commitments, jobs, artistic investments! There are a lot of professors who don’t care what your circumstances are. Professor Milton Fine surely didn’t, or he wouldn’t have flunked you for World History and then disappeared in the middle of the semester himself,” she pointed out.
Clark looked down at his lap. Trusting Milton Fine had been idiotic. Trusting him over people he had known for years was worse. If he hadn’t trusted him, would Lex still have been abducted?
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Clark?” she asked.
Clark looked up at the picture of Jorgenson’s kids on her desk. One was about fifteen years old; the other was perhaps five. “Yeah, I do. But… how do you deal with the guilt. I know it’s not exactly the same. I still feel guilty for taking any time for myself when the people around me need me.”
“Oh, Clark.” Jorgenson looked over to the picture and smiled softly, touching the frame. “You just have to get used to it. Realize that you can’t be everywhere at once. You can’t be everything for everyone. Not at the same time.”
Clark’s lip pushed out a little.
“Come to class today,” she instructed, turning to her file cabinet. “I’ll get a list of things together for you to turn in. You still have the syllabus, yes?”
“Yeah.” Clark nodded, trying to remember where he’d put it.
Jorgenson pulled out another blue syllabus and handed it to him with a knowing arch of her brow. “Here. Don’t lose this one. I can let you turn in your bibliography on Monday, instead of tomorrow.”
“Oh right,” Clark gasped. He’d completely forgotten about that. He was going to have to use his superspeed to get through enough material to decide on a topic for his research paper. “I’m sorry, Dr. Jorgenson. I’m not always this clueless. Late, yes. But in high school, I always had it together.”
“Life can seem much more simple in high school,” she conceded. “We’re starting discussion of the Roman empire today. Have you done the reading?”
“Uh. No. But I can get it finished before class.” Clark checked his watch. He actually hadn’t started, but… “I have thirty minutes. I can do it.”
Jorgenson smiled and handed him some more papers. “Hang in there, Clark.”
“I can’t thank you enough.” Clark took them and stood.
“If you get overwhelmed again, come talk to me in my office hours like you did today. I hate to see smart kids like you falling behind because life is messing with them and they can’t seem to pull it together,” she told him emphatically.
Clark nodded, thanked her again, and headed out to find a nice place out of sight to read a couple of books before class.
***
In, out, in, out.
Lex leaned back on his recumbent stationary bike, listening to the angry rock that he hardly ever admitted to following anymore now that he had hit his mid-twenties, and holding onto the handles on the sides. It was good exercise, and he was allowed to exercise still, as long as he chose something low impact that didn’t put pressure on the cervix he didn’t have. Not that he was about to start that argument with Tanaka again. Talking to her was about as useful as shouting at your computer.
It never listened, and you just got more frustrated in the attempt to reason with cold, hard metal.
Doing the cardio for him was as much a practice in keeping his breathing steady as it was keeping his body fit and healthy, so long as he didn’t start losing weight. The problem was mainly that Tanaka had forbidden his running every morning, which left him restless and irritable when he had the energy to be so. Thus, the bike. And yoga, when he didn’t feel too ridiculous doing it. He figured it was better to practice it before his center of gravity changed too much.
In, out, in, out.
Among the other things that he needed to practice before too long. He’d been hoping for a little help in that area, but he certainly wasn’t going to pour salt in the wounds of his newly found sister. He could figure out some of these things on his own, surely.
“Mr. Luthor, if you would excuse the interruption?” Domovoi’s worn voice rang into the gym, and Lex looked over his shoulder. With a nod from Lex, the man continued as he approached the bike. “You have a visitor, sir. Mr. Kent has requested an audience. I informed him that you were busy, but he said that he would wait, if you could see him. Should I tell Mr. Kent to return home?”
Lex knew that Domovoi was referring to Jonathan, since his head butler had always referred to Clark diminutively, as though he were a child. Clark didn’t know the difference between being called Mr. Kent and Master Clark, so it had obviously never offended him, but amused Lex a bit.
“No, tell him I’ll be with him-“ Lex looked up and checked his timer. “In about fifteen minutes, if he can wait.”
“Very good, sir. Do take care on that bike. I think that you should perhaps have someone spot you,” Domovoi commented.
Lex frowned, since the man didn’t normally take liberties. Nevertheless, there was no stopping him if he felt it were necessary. “I’m perfectly fine. Even if I fainted, I’d just stay here in the chair. No falling.”
“I’ll see that there is chilled water in your office,” Domovoi replied.
Lex rolled his eyes. He was surrounded by people who wanted to be his mother.
True to his word, less than fifteen minutes later, he waltzed into his office, still in his sweats and with a towel around his neck. “Afternoon, Mr. Kent. I appreciate you waiting. It’s hard to catch the time to exercise these days.”
“I’m sure you can hardly find time to breathe,” Jonathan replied, watching Lex head to the bar and take out a bottle of water for a long drink.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Kent?”
“Well, for starters, you can start calling me Jonathan. I’ve done nothing to earn your respect, and you’re not exactly a kid anymore.” The man hitched his hands on his hips and tiled his head at Lex, who raised a brow.
Lex screwed the top of the bottle back on and wiped a bit more sweat off the back of his head. “No, I’m not a kid anymore. Jonathan. However, I have respected you.”
“More than I deserve. I came over to apologize.”
Narrowing his eyes, Lex considered backing away or ordering a blood test. Jonathan Kent had apologized, or intimated that he was going to, precisely once in the time they had known one another, and that had been followed with a verbal threat and physical accosting within the day.
Jonathan shook his head at the look on Lex’s face. “I’m apologizing for snapping at you. You had every right to be cross with us for not treating your sister right, though I didn’t know the half of what was going on.”
“You were trying to defend your wife.” Lex rolled his shoulders and walked around to sit in his desk chair. “I was trying to defend my sister. Unbeknownst to us, the two of them could handle themselves in a catfight.”
Jonathan chuckled in response and walked over to the desk slowly. “I’ve never treated you right. I’ve been trying to, but… I’m a stubborn man. I have a hard time not backsliding into bad habits. So, this isn’t just for this morning. This is for being so hard on you for the past four year and a half years when a good part of my anger is directed at your father.”
“I know he hurt a lot of people around here, Mr. Kent, but I never intended-“
“Lex, this has nothing to do with that. He hurt them, but I let him in. I needed a favor, and I let him convince me that talking the Rosses into selling would be a good idea. I let the devil get a foothold here. Partly because it helped me and partly because I knew you’d been hurt in the meteor shower and I sympathized with him as one father to another.” Jonathan held his hand up before Lex could speak. “But that was my fault. It was never yours. There were a couple of times when I had a right to be angry with you, but not nearly enough to account for the way I’ve treated you. If you had my farm paved over for a parking lot after you bought it, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Most people would have lashed back by now.”
Lex closed his eyes.
In, out, in, out.
This was not how he had expected this conversation to go. But he was not going to cry. Hormones were not going to get the better of him.
“Mr. Kent, I appreciate your apology.” Lex opened his eyes and stood. “You didn’t have to say all of that, but I understand why you had a problem with me. You wouldn’t be the first person my father has willfully turned against me.” He offered his hand to Jonathan.
Considering the hand for a moment, the one that had been brushed away when they met on the bank beside the Loeb Bridge, Jonathan gave it a firm, warm shake. “I hope one day you really can trust me. Don’t say anything. I can tell that you don’t. You can’t let that guard down, and after all the times I’ve kicked you in the teeth when you were looking for kindness, I can’t blame you.”
Lex stepped back, uncertain of what to say to that.
“Martha said you called. And Clark’s staying here? Is that right?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes, I thought it might help him. He’s really conflicted right now. I’ll make sure he gets to school.”
“Then you’re doing better than we have. Thanks, Lex. You’re a good friend to him.” Jonathan nodded. “I’ll get out of your hair, but could you tell Lena, if she’s feeling up to talking about it, that I apologize for not pushing Martha to let Maddie go home? Since I got back, everything has changed, and Martha and I haven’t really worked out what’s what yet, even though we used to have all that kind of stuff sorted.”
“I’ll tell her, definitely.” Though when he would bring it up would remain to be seen.
Jonathan gave another nod. “See you, Lex. Oh, and Martha sent over a pie. I really don’t know how that helps, but Clark said you liked the last one a lot.”
Lex’s lips pursed together, and he nodded. “I did. They’re excellent. We’ll break into it when he gets home.”
“Great.” Jonathan gave a wave and left the office.
Lex touched his middle, confused and suspicious. Then he realized how sad it was that he was suspicious of someone being nice to him. Still. It couldn’t hurt to have someone test the pie for drugs of some kind.
***
“Ooo…” Chloe cooed with a smile. “How’s Smallville’s favorite babydaddy?”
“Shush, Chloe,” Clark admonished as he came down the steps to meet her at her desk. It was a miracle that they hadn’t been caught talking shop here before.
“No one’s listening. I could be talking about you and Lana for all anyone knows.”
“Yeah, but still. I know you’re practically the best secret keeper around,” Clark said. He leaned against the desk. “How are you?”
Chloe hesitated, looking anxious. “About the secret keeping thing…”
“Wait…” Clark grabbed a chair and leaned in closely to her. “Did someone find out about Lex?”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” she whispered back. “But… God, Clark, I’m so sorry. I would have talked to you sooner, but everything with Lena and Lex-“
“Chloe!” Clark exclaimed. His hands gently touched his shoulders. He couldn’t see her looking so upset. “It’s okay. What happened? Did… you didn’t tell anyone?”
“No, but you remember that my laptop was stolen,” Chloe said in a small voice as she twisted her fingers.
Clark blinked several times and felt his heart thudding in his chest. Almost as fast as hers was going. “Oh, shit.”
Chloe looked dismayed.
“What was on it?”
“A little bit of everything weird. I had this huge database of reports of male pregnancy, all the Wall of Weird stuff scanned and catalogued, and… a folder on you. Nothing… directly about your… youness… but…”
“Chloe! How could you?”
“It was just articles on you saving people…” Chloe collapsed over herself, burying her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry.”
“Didn’t you password protect the folder?” he asked incredulously. With Chloe’s computer skills, he could hardly believe this had happened.
“I did,” she protested. “I did password protect that, But when I got the laptop back, the file had been emptied out. Someone read those files, and if it was just some random person, no blood no foul, but if they knew what they were looking for-“
“It would be enough to raise suspicion. Chloe, did you have anything in that folder related to the meteor shower?”
She shook her head. “No, data on the meteor shower was in a separate folder. I don’t think there’d be a connection.”
Clark paused a moment, thinking that over. If someone stole Chloe’s laptop because they were suspicious of him, then making them more suspicious couldn’t possibly do anything. He sighed.
“I know I screwed up, Clark,” she said softly.
“Don’t, Chloe. You didn’t do this on purpose. Someone saw that, and eventually we’ll have to deal with it. It’s not like you betrayed me or anything.”
Chloe pushed her lip up and flung her arms around Clark’s neck for a tight hug. Clark hugged her a back and wiggled her back and forth until she laughed. “Okay okay.”
Clark suddenly stood up, taking Chloe with him. Her little legs dangled, and she laughed harder. “Clark!”
“Yes?” Clark kissed her neck and looked at her. “Chloe, it’s okay. We’re okay. Thanks for letting me know, though.”
“Well, I could hardly keep it from you. Put me down.”
Clark chuckled and returned Chloe to her feet.
“Mercy requisitioned a new laptop for me that should be easier to secure. But… I’ll be more careful about what I save.”
”I trust your judgment, Chloe.”
“Even now?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.
“Even now.” Clark smiled warmly and put his hand on her shoulder again. “I have to get back to my classes, but you and I need to talk soon.”
“Well, why did you come by? Did you need something?”
“No, I just haven’t seen you in awhile… okay, I saw you at the hospital, but I was a little distracted-“
“Though understandably so,” she put in.
“So I wanted to say hi, and see how you were doing.”
“Better, now that you’ve forgiven me for the sidekick blunder of the year.”
Clark licked his lips and brushed a stray blond lock out of her eyes. “You’re no one’s sidekick, Chloe.”
“You think I’m the hero of the story, huh? Even standing more than a foot shorter next to you?”
“Yeah, I do. Sometimes you are the hero. I’m not always.”
Chloe tilted her head to the side and looked up at him with a curvy, smirky smile. Clark could hardly believe that she stayed single most of the time. What guy wouldn’t want a pretty, funny, brilliant girl like her?
Unless of course, he were gay and in love with his pregnant best friend. But exceptions had to be made.
“Okay.” Clark hugged her again and kissed the top of her head. “I have to get going. How about you and I meet for lunch sometime this week?”
”Yeah, I think we still need to talk about… things,” Chloe said.
Clark raised a brow curiously, but she just mimicked the expression and pushed him a little with a wide smile, so he waved as he left, still a bit worried at what someone might have done with that male pregnancy information. He wasn’t really concerned that someone might find the stories on his small town deeds. Those were a matter of public record, and anyone could find that at any time.
Thinking about that, and reflecting on what Dr. Jorgenson had said earlier, Clark began to think about how he might keep a lower profile the next time someone needed his help.
***
The mansion was cool by the time that Clark returned that evening, or relatively so given the heat outside. It was slower taking the helicopter than it was to simply run back to Smallville, but he thought that it was sweet of Lex to make sure that everything was arranged for him to come home by the time his last classes had let out.
And a little creepy, since a car had also been waiting for him. Lex probably had his entire schedule memorized.
Clark cast it out of his mind and frowned, listening for heartbeats. He smiled as he found Lex’s first, then the baby’s whizzing little heartbeat inside of him, and after that, Lena and Maddie’s. They were together in the south wing. Clark looked in that direction to see them snuggled up on the floor amongst a bunch of pillows and watching a movie.
He walked up the steps to the library slowly. Lex and his baby’s heartbeats became nearer, and he poked his head into the doorway, tentatively at first. He couldn’t see Lex from there, so he kept walking quietly until he spotted a large blue armchair with a soft bald head leaning against the back. Clark grinned and walked up to the chair, setting his book bag down close by and peeking around the corner.
Lex’s face was relaxed, his mouth hanging open just a little. He’d obviously fallen asleep reading. Clark walked around the chair to get a better look at him and was amazed by how the light framed Lex’s face, so smooth save for the tiny scar on his upper lip and the one on his chin. He seemed pale aside from the rosy sheen over his cheeks and lips, although not as pale as he had been about a month ago. Clark’s fingers brushed ever so lightly over Lex’s soft cheek.
It struck Clark then that Lex was very young, and that was a very strange thought to have coming from a man six years younger than him, but nonetheless… Lex had turned twenty-five this year. It wasn’t an unreasonable age to have children and truthfully, a lot of the people in his senior class had already gotten married and some had children already. Some had them before finishing high school, but watching Lex there, his head falling back on the chair as he slept, Clark wouldn’t have believed there was so much of an age difference between them. He wondered if Lex still felt as lost as he did sometimes.
Kneeling by Lex’s sleeping form, Clark lifted the book in Lex’s lap slightly to read the cover: Going It Alone: A Guide to Miraculous, Miserable, Terrifying, and Wonderful Pregnancies without a Partner
Tears stung Clark’s eyes, and he squeezed into the chair next to Lex, trying to disturb him as little as possible, and then wrapped his arms around Lex’s waist and rested his head on Lex’s shoulder.
Lex mumbled something incomprehensible, fluttered his lids and then was silent again for several moments. Clark snuggled against him and hoped Lex wouldn’t mind. He seemed to be getting used to being touched, but still, anything could set him off these days.
“Who… no…” Lex frowned in his sleep.
Clark kissed his cheek. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.”
“Unnn…” Lex twisted around and looked at Clark with a frown. “Oh… hey, Clark.”
“Another bad dream?”
“S’okay,” he mumbled, turning his body a little to face Clark. “How was your day?”
“Not bad. I’m behind, but I can catch up. How was yours?”
“Fine.” Lex rested his head on Clark’s chest.
Clark smiled softly and petted Lex’s back. “We should go down for dinner soon.”
“Few more minutes,” Lex muttered, lying against Clark once again. He dozed off once again and the book slipped from his fingers.
“You’re not going it alone anymore, Lex,” Clark whispered, enjoying the weight of Lex’s warm body on him, and hoping Lex would lean on him like this whenever he needed it.
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!!
Thanks to herohunter for the quick beta! ♥
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
Like a child’s finger-painting, the sky was still smeared with purples and oranges when the black Lamborghini drove up to the Kent farm in a cloud of dust. The air was cool despite the predicted forecast that the day for a scorching, real Smallville summer day.
“Where do you think she is?”
“Probably in the barn. Honestly, I’m surprised that it’s come to this.”
“Me too. I thought Dad would’ve let Maddie go with Lena.”
“Since when is your father the one to ask permission? I’d had the impression that it was the other way around.”
“It usually is, but Dad’s been… different since he got back. More laid back, and he doesn’t push Mom like he used to. I don’t get them lately.”
A strong hand touched the jean covered thigh. It seemed small in comparison. “They’ll work it out, Clark. They always do.”
“I know.”
Clark leaned over and pulled a resisting Lex into a hug. Lex was getting used to being embraced by his friend again, but Clark was much more affectionate than he had been even as a fifteen year old, so it was definitely an adjustment.
I should be pregnant all the time, if this is the treatment I get, Lex thought to himself, looking out on the window and rapping his fingers along the glass. The last time he’d been awake on the farm this early, he’d been trying to prove to one Jonathan Kent that Lex Luthor could muck out horse hooey with the best of them. “Come on, Clark. I want to check on her.”
Clark nodded and got out of the driver’s seat. He’d taken the keys this morning because Lex had looked like he still needed some sleep after the helicopter, and sure enough, Lex had slept most of the way there.
“Do you need to eat?”
“Do you?” Lex countered.
Clark smirked and ignored Lex’s tone. “I’d eat this Lamb if I were any hungrier.”
The statement won Clark a chuckle as Lex passed him on his way to the barn. Clark followed closely, watching Lex’s hips move, and Lex was not unaware of this. Clark had been doing it all morning, watching him. Waiting. Looking as though, if Lex suddenly dropped, Clark would be more that ready to swoop him up and rush him to safety.
It was sweet, if odd.
The corner of Lex’s mouth twitched when he caught sight of the red couch up in the loft. It was just the top edge of it, but it reminded him of his latest weird, wild dream, at least the part that had been good. Lex gripped the railing of the stairs before going up and let his eyes fall closed. Yes. She was up there, breathing, sleeping peacefully. He hardly wanted to disturb her, lest she be reminded of what she lost and become upset again.
“You okay?” Clark asked worriedly. His hand rested on Lex’s shoulder. Lex looked up at him silently, and together they ascended.
At the top of the stairs, the sun shone more brightly, it seemed, through the large loft window than it had outside. The light hit two faces on the couch, bathing them in gold. Lex stepped forward and looked over them.
“Oh, Maddie’s with her,” Lex whispered. Clark tilted his head back a bit and walked over to them, kneeling by the couch and touching his huge hand to her small back. The little girl looked up and smiled groggily.
“Hi, Clark. See? I promised I’d protect her,” Maddie whispered.
“I see that. You’re doing a great job. We wanted to take you back to the castle. You up for that?” Clark asked gently
Maddie nodded energetically, then slowly moved away from Lena’s sleeping form. “I’ll go get my bag, okay? Is Domovoi out there still?”
“I didn’t see him, but I’m certain that he is,” Lex replied. Maddie walked quickly but quietly over to him and gave him a hug. His hand moved over her sleep-mussed braids. “Thank you for staying with her. It’s very hard for her right now.”
“I know. It hurts so much to lose someone. She feels bad now because she didn’t want him at first. I told her it wasn’t her fault, but she’s having a hard time. She really wants you here, Lex, but I think she’s scared she’ll hurt you.” Maddie nuzzled her face into his blue sweater.
“We talked about that, a little at least. Lena and I will work it out. Don’t you worry.” Lex leaned down just a bit to kiss the top of her head. “Go on.”
Watching Maddie jog down the stairs for a moment, Lex then turned back to the couch and walked around Clark to sit on the side of the cushion. Two long, slender fingers trailed along the side of Lena’s hair, and Lex smiled as she moved her hand to brush them away. He could almost feel when her awareness touched him.
“Lex?” She whispered his name before opening her eyes.
Lex bit his lip because his eyes began to sting immediately.
“Oh, baby,” Lena murmured.
Lex shook his head and wrapped her up in his arms. “I’m here. We’re here, and we’re taking you and Maddie home, okay?”
“Okay,” she agreed, resting her head on his shoulder. Clark reached up and began rubbing her back. She looked at him momentarily, then closed her eyes again. “I’m glad you boys are getting along.”
Clark chuckled. “Here and there. When I can keep my mouth shut.”
“Oh, Clark. That’s the best thing you do. No matter what you say, it’ll be the wrong thing.”
“Oh, thanks,” Clark replied sarcastically. “I’ll just sew my lips shut.”
“That’s just how it is.”
“Pregnant person rule number seven,” Lex told him lightly, hoping to keep him from sulking.
“You skipped five and six!” Clark complained.
“What are you boys talking about?” Lena asked, lifting her head.
Lex lifted his brows a little. “It’s… I’ll explain later.”
“Let’s go home.” Lena smiled and rubbed his arm.
“Yes. We have to go home, so that Clark can go to school,” Lex said pointedly.
Clark rolled his eyes. “Fine. I’ll go get my books.”
Lex and Lena stood, supporting one another as they came down from the loft. Lex felt much better with her in his arms, even if he could feel a tinge of her sadness on the edge of his consciousness. She was fairly calm, which was good.
When they reached the Lamborghini, Lex touched her shoulders. “I want you to stay here. I’m going inside to have a talk with Mr. and Mrs. Kent.”
Lena’s wide mouth pinched into a small, curious pout.
“Stay,” he repeated firmly. He pointed at her before turning towards the farmhouse and taking a deep, determined breath.
Clark looked back at Lena and met her eyes. Then he was startled as Domovoi appeared by the car silently. Clark blinked, then followed Lex into the house.
“Remember not to wear Lena out, okay? Lex either,” Jonathan was telling Maddie in a warm, tender voice.
“I know, I know,” Maddie replied. Her head whipped around when she heard Lex rapping on the screen door. “Lex! I’m coming.”
“Go on to the car, Maddie. I want to talk to the Kents for a moment.”
Clark’s eyes widened and shifted from his father to Lex. He reached out for Maddie, who anxiously went into his arms and wouldn’t let go.
“Lex,” he began softly.
“Clark, she slept in the barn,” Lex cut him off tersely.
Jonathan crossed his arms defensively. “She went out there on her own, and she had two adults with her. Clark slept in that barn all the time.”
“That disturbing image aside, I was speaking of Lena, not Maddie. The woman just suffered a violent attack and a miscarriage.” Lex’s volume was rising slowly. “Now I don’t know what your wife’s problem is, but this is utterly unacceptable. I sent Maddie over here to begin with because I trusted the both of you to take care of her and assumed that she would leave your care when I asked-“
“Now, Lex-“
“I really don’t understand why Lena should have had to isolate herself from the people in this house, who either could have given her hospitality or allowed her to go home with the child of whom I have custody!” Lex glared at Clark when his hand touched his right shoulder.
Clark shook his head. “Lex, calm down! It’s okay now.”
“No, it isn’t,” Lex argued. “How do you think your mother would have liked it to be trapped somewhere with cruel, judgmental people directly after she had lost a child?”
“That is enough,” Jonathan boomed. “Listen here, Lex, I’ve been pretty good to you over the past couple of months, but we don’t have to take this from you!”
“Dad, don’t start,” Clark warned. He ruffled his hair and groaned, pulling Lex backward. Somehow the two of them seemed to have begun creeping closer to each other. His voice softened. “Lex, stop. Please, let’s just go.”
“Clark, I cannot and will not allow Lena to take this kind of abuse.”
“She wasn’t that badly off-“ Jonathan protested.
Lex fixed his gaze on Jonathan once again. “When I got on the phone with her, she burst into tears within a minute. Attack me all you like, Mr. Kent. Extend that offer to your wife. Call me whatever you get it into your head to call me, sneer at me behind closed doors, and smear my name all over town, but you had better think twice about doing the same to my family!”
“Your- what? Your family? Maddie-“
“Lena,” Lex snapped.
Jonathan’s arms dropped to his sides in surprise. He shook his head. “Lex, I didn’t know, but I promise you, we didn’t throw her out of the house or talk badly to her.”
When Lex moved forward to argue again, Clark’s arm slipped around Lex’s shoulder and pulled him to his chest.
“Don’t make me hose you down. I know how you feel about her. But think about your stress levels, please,” Clark whispered into Lex’s ear. Lex made a sour, sulky face but made no effort to get away. Clark was right, and it wasn’t really Jonathan he was angry at, although the man should have made Martha let his sister go. Clark looked up to his father and said quietly, “Lena’s his sister. Could you get Mom, so we can have a little talk?”
Lex touched Clark’s forearm lightly and looked up to him gratefully once Jonathan had given them a brisk nod and gone off to find his wife. “Thank you.”
“I’ll take a thanks from her.” Clark moved his hand down to tickle Lex’s belly.
“Ah!” Lex wiggled away, and Maddie giggled.
Martha and Lena walked into the kitchen at opposite ends within seconds of one another. After staring at one another for what seemed like a long time, Lena spoke first, touching Lex’s arm. “Baby, what’s wrong?”
“I’m fine,” he assured her. “Go back to the car.”
“Not a chance. Not unless you’re coming with me,” she replied resolutely.
“Maybe I can take care of this,” Clark offered.
Martha looked around. “What is going on?”
“The boys want to talk to you, hon. Please, just listen,” Jonathan asked, rubbing her shoulders.
Martha gave Lena a displeased look, and Lena let out a noise of frustration. “What is your problem? I haven’t done anything to you!”
“I know enough about you to have nothing to do with you,” Martha replied coldly, lifting her chin in defiance. Jonathan blinked in disbelief.
“Mom!” Clark protested. Lex felt himself tensing from head to toe. Of course what Lena had been experiencing hadn’t been overt. She could feel how much Martha hated her no matter how well the woman faked a smile.
“I have to say, Mrs. Kent, considering the attitudes of your husband and child, I would have thought you’d have a little more respect for other women than to just go around judging everyone like that.” Lena stepped closer to Martha, with her eyes narrowed and her jaw set.
Lex looked at Clark anxiously. This could not go well. “Maybe we should all-“
“I don’t have to have respect for what women like you do,” Martha replied to Lena sharply.
Jonathan ran his hands over his face. “Martha-“
“And I don’t think that children should be entrusted to the care of common whores,” Martha continued.
The room fell silent and all three men looked at one another, trying to decide how to defuse this situation.
“Lemme ask you. What makes you so sure that I’m a whore?” Lena asked, turning to the older woman with a severe expression. More severe than Lex had ever seen her really wear, which in itself was a little frightening. He’d wondered what it would take to get Lena angry. “Nevermind. Don’t answer that. I know.”
Martha rolled her eyes. “There are things in this world that you don’t mess with. Things that are sacred, and women like you care more about getting paid than the damage you cause.”
Lex stepped forward to protect Lena, but her hand swiveled around to block him. “Don’t, Lexie. I got this.” She glared at Martha. “What I do? Lemme tell you about what I do. You think I fuck for money?”
Maddie’s eyes went wide, and she looked at Lena in shock. Clark knelt down and put his arms around her shoulders, whispering, “Shhh…”
“I don’t have to, Martha! I will never have to fuck a man, or a woman for money. You know why?” Lena put a hand on her hip and shook her head, pointing at Martha. “Because I know how you feel. I know how you feel. I know you have no respect for me. I know I disgust you. I know my accent grates on your delicate nerves. I know you have pity for me. And I know you’ve had a miscarriage, too.”
Martha licked her lips and adjusted her shoulders in distress.
“Same way, I know what every person who comes up to me feels. Men, women, black, white, brown, rich, poor, meta, or normie. I know. I know what the girls on the street corner near Solara feel, and I know how Anglique felt when her boyfriend left him after she finally popped enough rich men to afford the surgery, and I know how scared they get and how some of them live off of it and some of them hate it. I know they don’t want your pity either.” Lena dropped her hands and took a deep breath. “ I’m lucky, though. I’m never gonna have to put on that red light because I’ve got this gift that lets me do so much. And that’s a privilege, and I know that. I wish you did.”
Martha crossed her arms. “I know of people who have paid you to have sex with them. Just because you aren’t whoring on a street corner doesn’t make it any reprehensible that you slept with a married man.”
“Oh, please. You’ve cheated on your husband. Don’t look at me like you haven’t skated the sacred bonds of marriage yourself,” Lena said, narrowing her eyes. Lex could feel Clark tensing up behind him, and he turned slightly to rub his shoulder.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Martha said flatly.
“I know how you feel! I know you’re lying. And I know your husband knows. You protest too much, honey. But for the sake of clearing the air, I’ll just lay this out there: I like to help people, and I can feel them, so what I do is actually closer to being a counselor than a prostitute. Sometimes I have sex with the people I’m helping. Sometimes not. It depends on my relationship to them, and I’ll do it with men or women; it doesn’t matter. If we have a connection, then I’ll help.” Lena looked at Lex. “Sometimes the connection doesn’t mean sex, but we get pretty close.” She looked back at Martha. “And sometimes they give me money, or pay my rent, because we’re friends, and we’re both giving each other a lot. I have a lot of friends. It’s easy to do when you see people from the inside. But honey, they aren’t paying me for the privilege of my pussy. And I’m not going to take your attitude. So you can cut that out right now. I have respect for myself, and nothing you can say will take that away.”
Maddie wiggled in Clark’s arms, and he let her go. She came up to Lena’s side, and Lena wrapped her arm around the girl and petted her head with the other hand. Martha looked away, then up at Jonathan who was pressing his lips together and avoiding looking at Clark.
After a moment, Jonathan cleared his throat gruffly. “Alright, then. I hope all of you are done because this fighting is over.”
“Jona-“
“Martha! This is about you and me, and you’ve got to stop this. C’mon. “ Jonathan stepped closer to her and then pulled his wife into a tight hug.
“Mom, you didn’t cheat on Dad,” Clark protested, sounding like an upset fifteen year old. When they didn’t answer for a moment, and his mother began to sob into Jonathan’s shoulder, Clark cried out again, “You didn’t!”
“I did it first, Clark,” Jonathan boomed, turning his head to look at his son. “Only your mother can’t forgive herself.”
“You didn’t fall in love with her,” Martha muttered into Jonathan’s shoulder.
Lena sighed and put her hand over her chest, looking overwhelmed and a little frustrated. Lex came up to her and put his arm around her shoulder. “C’mon. Let’s leave them.”
Clark looked at Lex, utterly lost. Lex was leaving? He looked between the three of them for a moment, then turned back to his parents. Lex would be outside when he got to the bottom of this. There were probably way too many emotions in the room for Lena to handle right now.
“Mom? Dad? What’s going on?” Clark asked once they’d gone outside.
Jonathan began rubbing Martha’s back. “I’ve not always been a good husband, Clark. I wish I were better, and God, with your mother, I really tried. I met her when I was married to Nell, and… I should have divorced her before I started seeing Martha, but I didn’t.”
Martha pulled away from him and sat in a chair, still sobbing. Clark went over to her and put a hand on his mother’s shoulder. “So when you two fell in love at Met U…?”
“I left Nell for her,” Jonathan explained. “Nell’s never forgiven me, and I can’t say I blame her.” He rubbed his hands together and sighed. “But…”
“You cheated on Mom,” Clark said, his voice cracking.
“A couple of times. And she… she had her attic, where she went whenever she found out. I didn’t know. Thought I was smoother than that.” Jonathan pulled up his chair. “But she was smart. And she knew. You should have left me.”
“I couldn’t,” Martha whispered. Clark grabbed a tissue off the table and gave it to her. He couldn’t help but agree with his father, though, that she should have left.
Jonathan looked at his son seriously. “Well, you can’t expect people to change, Clark. Most of the time they can’t. But I did.” He reached over and took Martha’s hand. “Before we found you, your mother got pregnant, and it was what she had always wanted, and I… I knew I had to be a good father. I stopped drinking, almost completely. There’s an AA meeting at the local Methodist church, and though I wasn’t doing it compulsively, that helped a lot to begin with. We went organic. I stopped with the other women completely, especially Nell.”
“Oh, God, Dad!” Clark complained.
“Then, we lost the baby. We kept trying, but we couldn’t get her pregnant again. I was afraid that it was me, a little bit. That I’d been so bad for her, that I didn’t deserve to be a father.” Jonathan rubbed his mouth. “So I just tried to be the best husband I could be. Then we found you, and it changed everything.”
Clark took a breath and tried to wrap his mind around this. He couldn’t believe that his father had been such… an asshole. How could he have done that to his mother? And he’d though… no wonder his mother was such a nutcase about the ‘sanctity’ of marriage. “You never did it again, did you Dad?“ Clark pleaded.
“It wasn’t his fault,” Martha said quickly.
“Dad!” Clark cried, a tear running down his cheek. This could not be the idyllic family he’d grown up with.
“Desirée,” Jonathan said quietly.
“Oh.” Clark winced. He licked his lips and looked at his mother, who had stopped crying, but was sitting there quietly.
Jonathan leaned forward and took her hand, lifting it to his lips for a kiss. “Honey, I’m so sorry.”
“She had powers. It wasn’t your fault. The woman basically raped you, Jonathan.”
“Well, the hurt she stirred up came from hurt I’d already caused. I can never apologize enough for that,” Jonathan said firmly.
“It doesn’t make what I did right,” she whispered. “It doesn’t make what I was doing while you were gone right, either.”
“You thought I was dead. I can’t praise your taste in men, but I’m not going to fault you for being with someone else while I’m dead. That’s just not fair to you.”
Martha pressed her lips together, and a few more tears trickled down her face. “He confuses me.”
“I know, baby. I know.” Jonathan leaned forward and pulled her into another hug. “But we’ll pull through it, just like we have before, yeah?”
She nodded, taking a few shaky breaths. Clark pulled away from them both and stood in stunned silence. Who were these people who called themselves his parents? The ones who had taught him how horrible it was to drink, to cheat, and to hurt other people? The ones who had always preached tolerance and caring towards other people?
“I’ve got to go,” Clark muttered.
Jonathan looked up. “I’m sorry, Clark. We’re just people. We’re flawed, and we’ve both screwed up.” He shook his head. “We just try to hold onto each other, and not make the same mistakes again. After your mom’s one affair, that was the end of it, for good, as long as we were together. Even though… I think she really was in love with him.”
“He manipulated me. And I fell for it. I always let him do that, Jonathan. I don’t know why I keep letting him,” Martha said, looking up at her husband in askance.
Jonathan touched her chin. “Because he’s a slimy little snake, and it’s what he does.”
“I’ve… got to think about this.” Clark rubbed the back of his neck. “I love you guys, but… I’ve got to go.”
He leaned over and gave both of his parents a hug, then headed out of the house, spotting Lex and the girls by the car. Lena and Maddie. Lex hand his hand on his stomach as he watched them, rubbing thoughtfully. Clark picked up his pace and came up to Lex’s side.
“You okay?” Lex asked, touching Clark’s bicep gently.
“That was intense,” Clark muttered.
“That was scary,” Maddie complained.
“My parents are adulterers,” Clark said, looking down at her.
“Your parents are people, Clark,” Lena said softly. “They really do love each other. And you. If you need the reminder.”
“That doesn’t make my dad cheating all the time okay.”
“No. It doesn’t.” Lena shook her head. “If it’s all the same to you guys, I really need to go home.” She held up a hand. “Around you three is okay, but my head is about to burst.”
“Yeah, I think the rave is off,” Lex said dryly. “Let’s get going. Come with us, Clark? You can borrow the chopper back to Metropolis.” He took Clark’s hand and swung it a bit.
“Yeah. Yeah, I’ll come. I just need to get out of here for a while.” Clark shook his head, still a little dazed at the enormity of what he’d just learned. “Can’t believe my mom would…”
“I was surprised you didn’t know about that, Clark. Though you were only sixteen at the time,” Lex pointed out, pressing the button on his keys to unlock the doors.
“You knew? God, I feel dumb.” Clark opened the backseat, then went over to Lena and gave her a hug.
She stretched her neck up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “You’re gonna be alright. I don’t think they’ll get divorced, and they’ve been through so much. I think that’s pretty telling. Most people these days would split, or just keep hurting each other. Your mom just can’t get over her guilt. It’s tied up with one of her miscarriages, I think. Maybe she thinks it’s her fault for cheating.”
“There is no way that could be true,” Lex said.
“First hand experience, Lexie. You don’t have to be rational about why a miscarriage happened.” Lena let go of Clark and sighed. Clark could tell that she was still very much in pain, but it was good to see her out of the hospital, in any case.
Lex nodded and ushered Maddie into the back seat. “Regardless of how weird it would have been for me and you, Clark, I wish that child had made it.”
“My baby brother? Why would it have been weird for us?” Clark frowned.
“Well, us sharing a brother-“ Lex stopped himself, paled, then moved to get in the car.
Clark grabbed his arm. “No. No. My mother did not have an affair with your father!”
Lena reached up and touched his hand with a meaningful look. Clark dropped it, but continued to stare at Lex, who pressed his lips into a line and sighed. “I’m sorry, Clark. I tried to warn her to stay away from him.”
“I’ll kill him,” Clark said.
Lena encircled his bicep with her arms. “No, you won’t, sweetie. You’ll come with us for breakfast, then you’ll go to school, and then you’ll forgive your mom for letting that snake bastard slime his way into her pants.”
“Oh my, Goooood,” Clark groaned as she pushed him down into the backseat. “I’m scarred for life!”
Lex and Lena shared a look, then got in themselves. Once inside, Lex rubbed Clark’s thigh, looking at him sympathetically. “When you get off school, stay the night with us. I’ll call your father so he’ll know where you are. We’ll help you relax and think things through.”
“And give you ice cream,” Lena insisted. “And maybe some movies. And dancing. I brought Twister over. Only Lex can’t play.”
“You’re so cruel,” Lex told her, with a frown, although he was clearly joking.
“Or we could have Lex play, and take pictures of him trying to do it,” she laughed. Maddie giggled.
Clark laid his head back on the headrest and took a deep breath. “I love you guys.”
Lex hugged him around the shoulders before nodding to Domovoi, who turned the key in the ignition and headed for the castle.
***
Rapping gently against the frame of his professor’s door, Clark peeked inside the terminally cluttered office with all the confidence of a baby mouse before a lion. “Uh… Dr. Jorgenson?”
“Hello, Clark. Come in. I was beginning to think you were one of our mid-semester losses,” she said, motioning to the chair in front of her desk. It was a small office, but she had managed to squeeze no less than three bookshelves stuffed with books, a mini-refrigerator, and a microwave in there.
Clark set his bookbag aside and looked at her curiously. “Losses?”
“Inevitably, we always have students who disappear off the face of the planet during the course of the semester.” Dr. Jorgenson leaned forward and tapped the edge of her pen on her desk. “So, what’s your story, Clark?”
“I… well, it wasn’t my family emergency, but my best friend’s sister lost her baby… I mean she was attacked, stabbed, and then had a miscarriage. We’re lucky she’s still alive,” Clark told her in a halting voice. “He needed me around, and that’s why I haven’t been to class.”
Dr. Jorgenson pressed her lips into a fine line and looked on Clark’s face for a moment. “Well, I can’t excuse for that, but if you want to try to catch back up-“
“I do. I really do, Le- uh… my friend paid my tuition and he’s really trying to get me to stay in college this time,” Clark explained. “I’ll do whatever I have to do.”
“This time? What happened last time?” she leaned her temple against her fingers and looked at him with interest.
“Last time? I… my father died. Kind of. It was weird; the hospital told us he was dead, and it turned out they had him mixed up with someone else.” He pushed the words out, knowing how feeble they sounded. “He’s better now, but at the time, I had to drop out to make sure the farm stayed running.”
“It sounds like you spend a lot of time taking care of your family,” she mused. “I mean that your friend must be that close if he needed you by his side for support when his sister was still in the hospital.”
Clark sighed. “He is. He’s had a rough time lately, and that’s just the most recent thing.”
“You’re a smart boy. I can tell this from how quickly you pick up on things in my class. I feel like a lot of this is review-” Dr. Jorgenson sat up straight and ran her fingers through her graying blond hair before she spoke. “-which is troubling because you flunked this class at A&M.”
“Oh, but that wasn’t… I had a lot going on that semester.”
“Clark, let me let you in on a secret about college.” She leaned forward and looked over her glasses. “There’s a lot going on every semester.”
“No, I mean, my mother got sick, and then my dad was running for senate, and my girlfriend and I were having problems-“
“Clark, this semester seems to have a lot going on, too, doesn’t it? Your friend’s problems become your own. What else?”
Clark twisted his lips to the side a little. “Honestly, my friend is going to have a baby and his father is crazy, and my parents got into an explosive fight with my best friend and his sister and have apparently had the hardest time not cheating on each other, especially since she thought he was dead for part of the year and hooked up with the guy who got her pregnant with the baby she miscarried a few years ago and-“ He sighed. “My life is a soap opera.”
Jorgenson smiled. “It sounds like it has been. But, Clark, you can’t let their problems interfere with your education. I know that you love them, and you want to be there for these people. That’s a given for many students, but you’re going to have to learn balance between the different facets of your life. We all have different sides to ourselves. I remember in grad school, I would go to class and be a student. Then on another day, I would dress up in a suit and be a TA. Then the next day, in another outfit, I worked at the library. I went home, took off my suit, and became Mommy. You become fragmented, and you have to decide what is important to you.” She gave him a pleading look. “And that does include your future goals and things you need for yourself. Maybe you feel like you’re being selfish, but some time is required for those, and I think at the very least, time to get to class isn’t too much to ask.”
“But I didn’t mean… it was an emergency. I had to be there for him. I couldn’t not,” Clark argued.
“Yes, but I’m telling you this for next time. I will let you make this up. I like having you in my class, but there are plenty of professors who don’t have the time to work with students who already have a life. Families, commitments, jobs, artistic investments! There are a lot of professors who don’t care what your circumstances are. Professor Milton Fine surely didn’t, or he wouldn’t have flunked you for World History and then disappeared in the middle of the semester himself,” she pointed out.
Clark looked down at his lap. Trusting Milton Fine had been idiotic. Trusting him over people he had known for years was worse. If he hadn’t trusted him, would Lex still have been abducted?
“Do you understand what I’m saying, Clark?” she asked.
Clark looked up at the picture of Jorgenson’s kids on her desk. One was about fifteen years old; the other was perhaps five. “Yeah, I do. But… how do you deal with the guilt. I know it’s not exactly the same. I still feel guilty for taking any time for myself when the people around me need me.”
“Oh, Clark.” Jorgenson looked over to the picture and smiled softly, touching the frame. “You just have to get used to it. Realize that you can’t be everywhere at once. You can’t be everything for everyone. Not at the same time.”
Clark’s lip pushed out a little.
“Come to class today,” she instructed, turning to her file cabinet. “I’ll get a list of things together for you to turn in. You still have the syllabus, yes?”
“Yeah.” Clark nodded, trying to remember where he’d put it.
Jorgenson pulled out another blue syllabus and handed it to him with a knowing arch of her brow. “Here. Don’t lose this one. I can let you turn in your bibliography on Monday, instead of tomorrow.”
“Oh right,” Clark gasped. He’d completely forgotten about that. He was going to have to use his superspeed to get through enough material to decide on a topic for his research paper. “I’m sorry, Dr. Jorgenson. I’m not always this clueless. Late, yes. But in high school, I always had it together.”
“Life can seem much more simple in high school,” she conceded. “We’re starting discussion of the Roman empire today. Have you done the reading?”
“Uh. No. But I can get it finished before class.” Clark checked his watch. He actually hadn’t started, but… “I have thirty minutes. I can do it.”
Jorgenson smiled and handed him some more papers. “Hang in there, Clark.”
“I can’t thank you enough.” Clark took them and stood.
“If you get overwhelmed again, come talk to me in my office hours like you did today. I hate to see smart kids like you falling behind because life is messing with them and they can’t seem to pull it together,” she told him emphatically.
Clark nodded, thanked her again, and headed out to find a nice place out of sight to read a couple of books before class.
***
In, out, in, out.
Lex leaned back on his recumbent stationary bike, listening to the angry rock that he hardly ever admitted to following anymore now that he had hit his mid-twenties, and holding onto the handles on the sides. It was good exercise, and he was allowed to exercise still, as long as he chose something low impact that didn’t put pressure on the cervix he didn’t have. Not that he was about to start that argument with Tanaka again. Talking to her was about as useful as shouting at your computer.
It never listened, and you just got more frustrated in the attempt to reason with cold, hard metal.
Doing the cardio for him was as much a practice in keeping his breathing steady as it was keeping his body fit and healthy, so long as he didn’t start losing weight. The problem was mainly that Tanaka had forbidden his running every morning, which left him restless and irritable when he had the energy to be so. Thus, the bike. And yoga, when he didn’t feel too ridiculous doing it. He figured it was better to practice it before his center of gravity changed too much.
In, out, in, out.
Among the other things that he needed to practice before too long. He’d been hoping for a little help in that area, but he certainly wasn’t going to pour salt in the wounds of his newly found sister. He could figure out some of these things on his own, surely.
“Mr. Luthor, if you would excuse the interruption?” Domovoi’s worn voice rang into the gym, and Lex looked over his shoulder. With a nod from Lex, the man continued as he approached the bike. “You have a visitor, sir. Mr. Kent has requested an audience. I informed him that you were busy, but he said that he would wait, if you could see him. Should I tell Mr. Kent to return home?”
Lex knew that Domovoi was referring to Jonathan, since his head butler had always referred to Clark diminutively, as though he were a child. Clark didn’t know the difference between being called Mr. Kent and Master Clark, so it had obviously never offended him, but amused Lex a bit.
“No, tell him I’ll be with him-“ Lex looked up and checked his timer. “In about fifteen minutes, if he can wait.”
“Very good, sir. Do take care on that bike. I think that you should perhaps have someone spot you,” Domovoi commented.
Lex frowned, since the man didn’t normally take liberties. Nevertheless, there was no stopping him if he felt it were necessary. “I’m perfectly fine. Even if I fainted, I’d just stay here in the chair. No falling.”
“I’ll see that there is chilled water in your office,” Domovoi replied.
Lex rolled his eyes. He was surrounded by people who wanted to be his mother.
True to his word, less than fifteen minutes later, he waltzed into his office, still in his sweats and with a towel around his neck. “Afternoon, Mr. Kent. I appreciate you waiting. It’s hard to catch the time to exercise these days.”
“I’m sure you can hardly find time to breathe,” Jonathan replied, watching Lex head to the bar and take out a bottle of water for a long drink.
“What can I do for you, Mr. Kent?”
“Well, for starters, you can start calling me Jonathan. I’ve done nothing to earn your respect, and you’re not exactly a kid anymore.” The man hitched his hands on his hips and tiled his head at Lex, who raised a brow.
Lex screwed the top of the bottle back on and wiped a bit more sweat off the back of his head. “No, I’m not a kid anymore. Jonathan. However, I have respected you.”
“More than I deserve. I came over to apologize.”
Narrowing his eyes, Lex considered backing away or ordering a blood test. Jonathan Kent had apologized, or intimated that he was going to, precisely once in the time they had known one another, and that had been followed with a verbal threat and physical accosting within the day.
Jonathan shook his head at the look on Lex’s face. “I’m apologizing for snapping at you. You had every right to be cross with us for not treating your sister right, though I didn’t know the half of what was going on.”
“You were trying to defend your wife.” Lex rolled his shoulders and walked around to sit in his desk chair. “I was trying to defend my sister. Unbeknownst to us, the two of them could handle themselves in a catfight.”
Jonathan chuckled in response and walked over to the desk slowly. “I’ve never treated you right. I’ve been trying to, but… I’m a stubborn man. I have a hard time not backsliding into bad habits. So, this isn’t just for this morning. This is for being so hard on you for the past four year and a half years when a good part of my anger is directed at your father.”
“I know he hurt a lot of people around here, Mr. Kent, but I never intended-“
“Lex, this has nothing to do with that. He hurt them, but I let him in. I needed a favor, and I let him convince me that talking the Rosses into selling would be a good idea. I let the devil get a foothold here. Partly because it helped me and partly because I knew you’d been hurt in the meteor shower and I sympathized with him as one father to another.” Jonathan held his hand up before Lex could speak. “But that was my fault. It was never yours. There were a couple of times when I had a right to be angry with you, but not nearly enough to account for the way I’ve treated you. If you had my farm paved over for a parking lot after you bought it, I wouldn’t have been surprised. Most people would have lashed back by now.”
Lex closed his eyes.
In, out, in, out.
This was not how he had expected this conversation to go. But he was not going to cry. Hormones were not going to get the better of him.
“Mr. Kent, I appreciate your apology.” Lex opened his eyes and stood. “You didn’t have to say all of that, but I understand why you had a problem with me. You wouldn’t be the first person my father has willfully turned against me.” He offered his hand to Jonathan.
Considering the hand for a moment, the one that had been brushed away when they met on the bank beside the Loeb Bridge, Jonathan gave it a firm, warm shake. “I hope one day you really can trust me. Don’t say anything. I can tell that you don’t. You can’t let that guard down, and after all the times I’ve kicked you in the teeth when you were looking for kindness, I can’t blame you.”
Lex stepped back, uncertain of what to say to that.
“Martha said you called. And Clark’s staying here? Is that right?” Jonathan asked.
“Yes, I thought it might help him. He’s really conflicted right now. I’ll make sure he gets to school.”
“Then you’re doing better than we have. Thanks, Lex. You’re a good friend to him.” Jonathan nodded. “I’ll get out of your hair, but could you tell Lena, if she’s feeling up to talking about it, that I apologize for not pushing Martha to let Maddie go home? Since I got back, everything has changed, and Martha and I haven’t really worked out what’s what yet, even though we used to have all that kind of stuff sorted.”
“I’ll tell her, definitely.” Though when he would bring it up would remain to be seen.
Jonathan gave another nod. “See you, Lex. Oh, and Martha sent over a pie. I really don’t know how that helps, but Clark said you liked the last one a lot.”
Lex’s lips pursed together, and he nodded. “I did. They’re excellent. We’ll break into it when he gets home.”
“Great.” Jonathan gave a wave and left the office.
Lex touched his middle, confused and suspicious. Then he realized how sad it was that he was suspicious of someone being nice to him. Still. It couldn’t hurt to have someone test the pie for drugs of some kind.
***
“Ooo…” Chloe cooed with a smile. “How’s Smallville’s favorite babydaddy?”
“Shush, Chloe,” Clark admonished as he came down the steps to meet her at her desk. It was a miracle that they hadn’t been caught talking shop here before.
“No one’s listening. I could be talking about you and Lana for all anyone knows.”
“Yeah, but still. I know you’re practically the best secret keeper around,” Clark said. He leaned against the desk. “How are you?”
Chloe hesitated, looking anxious. “About the secret keeping thing…”
“Wait…” Clark grabbed a chair and leaned in closely to her. “Did someone find out about Lex?”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” she whispered back. “But… God, Clark, I’m so sorry. I would have talked to you sooner, but everything with Lena and Lex-“
“Chloe!” Clark exclaimed. His hands gently touched his shoulders. He couldn’t see her looking so upset. “It’s okay. What happened? Did… you didn’t tell anyone?”
“No, but you remember that my laptop was stolen,” Chloe said in a small voice as she twisted her fingers.
Clark blinked several times and felt his heart thudding in his chest. Almost as fast as hers was going. “Oh, shit.”
Chloe looked dismayed.
“What was on it?”
“A little bit of everything weird. I had this huge database of reports of male pregnancy, all the Wall of Weird stuff scanned and catalogued, and… a folder on you. Nothing… directly about your… youness… but…”
“Chloe! How could you?”
“It was just articles on you saving people…” Chloe collapsed over herself, burying her face in her hands. “I’m so sorry.”
“Didn’t you password protect the folder?” he asked incredulously. With Chloe’s computer skills, he could hardly believe this had happened.
“I did,” she protested. “I did password protect that, But when I got the laptop back, the file had been emptied out. Someone read those files, and if it was just some random person, no blood no foul, but if they knew what they were looking for-“
“It would be enough to raise suspicion. Chloe, did you have anything in that folder related to the meteor shower?”
She shook her head. “No, data on the meteor shower was in a separate folder. I don’t think there’d be a connection.”
Clark paused a moment, thinking that over. If someone stole Chloe’s laptop because they were suspicious of him, then making them more suspicious couldn’t possibly do anything. He sighed.
“I know I screwed up, Clark,” she said softly.
“Don’t, Chloe. You didn’t do this on purpose. Someone saw that, and eventually we’ll have to deal with it. It’s not like you betrayed me or anything.”
Chloe pushed her lip up and flung her arms around Clark’s neck for a tight hug. Clark hugged her a back and wiggled her back and forth until she laughed. “Okay okay.”
Clark suddenly stood up, taking Chloe with him. Her little legs dangled, and she laughed harder. “Clark!”
“Yes?” Clark kissed her neck and looked at her. “Chloe, it’s okay. We’re okay. Thanks for letting me know, though.”
“Well, I could hardly keep it from you. Put me down.”
Clark chuckled and returned Chloe to her feet.
“Mercy requisitioned a new laptop for me that should be easier to secure. But… I’ll be more careful about what I save.”
”I trust your judgment, Chloe.”
“Even now?” she asked, tilting her head to the side.
“Even now.” Clark smiled warmly and put his hand on her shoulder again. “I have to get back to my classes, but you and I need to talk soon.”
“Well, why did you come by? Did you need something?”
“No, I just haven’t seen you in awhile… okay, I saw you at the hospital, but I was a little distracted-“
“Though understandably so,” she put in.
“So I wanted to say hi, and see how you were doing.”
“Better, now that you’ve forgiven me for the sidekick blunder of the year.”
Clark licked his lips and brushed a stray blond lock out of her eyes. “You’re no one’s sidekick, Chloe.”
“You think I’m the hero of the story, huh? Even standing more than a foot shorter next to you?”
“Yeah, I do. Sometimes you are the hero. I’m not always.”
Chloe tilted her head to the side and looked up at him with a curvy, smirky smile. Clark could hardly believe that she stayed single most of the time. What guy wouldn’t want a pretty, funny, brilliant girl like her?
Unless of course, he were gay and in love with his pregnant best friend. But exceptions had to be made.
“Okay.” Clark hugged her again and kissed the top of her head. “I have to get going. How about you and I meet for lunch sometime this week?”
”Yeah, I think we still need to talk about… things,” Chloe said.
Clark raised a brow curiously, but she just mimicked the expression and pushed him a little with a wide smile, so he waved as he left, still a bit worried at what someone might have done with that male pregnancy information. He wasn’t really concerned that someone might find the stories on his small town deeds. Those were a matter of public record, and anyone could find that at any time.
Thinking about that, and reflecting on what Dr. Jorgenson had said earlier, Clark began to think about how he might keep a lower profile the next time someone needed his help.
***
The mansion was cool by the time that Clark returned that evening, or relatively so given the heat outside. It was slower taking the helicopter than it was to simply run back to Smallville, but he thought that it was sweet of Lex to make sure that everything was arranged for him to come home by the time his last classes had let out.
And a little creepy, since a car had also been waiting for him. Lex probably had his entire schedule memorized.
Clark cast it out of his mind and frowned, listening for heartbeats. He smiled as he found Lex’s first, then the baby’s whizzing little heartbeat inside of him, and after that, Lena and Maddie’s. They were together in the south wing. Clark looked in that direction to see them snuggled up on the floor amongst a bunch of pillows and watching a movie.
He walked up the steps to the library slowly. Lex and his baby’s heartbeats became nearer, and he poked his head into the doorway, tentatively at first. He couldn’t see Lex from there, so he kept walking quietly until he spotted a large blue armchair with a soft bald head leaning against the back. Clark grinned and walked up to the chair, setting his book bag down close by and peeking around the corner.
Lex’s face was relaxed, his mouth hanging open just a little. He’d obviously fallen asleep reading. Clark walked around the chair to get a better look at him and was amazed by how the light framed Lex’s face, so smooth save for the tiny scar on his upper lip and the one on his chin. He seemed pale aside from the rosy sheen over his cheeks and lips, although not as pale as he had been about a month ago. Clark’s fingers brushed ever so lightly over Lex’s soft cheek.
It struck Clark then that Lex was very young, and that was a very strange thought to have coming from a man six years younger than him, but nonetheless… Lex had turned twenty-five this year. It wasn’t an unreasonable age to have children and truthfully, a lot of the people in his senior class had already gotten married and some had children already. Some had them before finishing high school, but watching Lex there, his head falling back on the chair as he slept, Clark wouldn’t have believed there was so much of an age difference between them. He wondered if Lex still felt as lost as he did sometimes.
Kneeling by Lex’s sleeping form, Clark lifted the book in Lex’s lap slightly to read the cover: Going It Alone: A Guide to Miraculous, Miserable, Terrifying, and Wonderful Pregnancies without a Partner
Tears stung Clark’s eyes, and he squeezed into the chair next to Lex, trying to disturb him as little as possible, and then wrapped his arms around Lex’s waist and rested his head on Lex’s shoulder.
Lex mumbled something incomprehensible, fluttered his lids and then was silent again for several moments. Clark snuggled against him and hoped Lex wouldn’t mind. He seemed to be getting used to being touched, but still, anything could set him off these days.
“Who… no…” Lex frowned in his sleep.
Clark kissed his cheek. “It’s okay. I’m here. You’re safe.”
“Unnn…” Lex twisted around and looked at Clark with a frown. “Oh… hey, Clark.”
“Another bad dream?”
“S’okay,” he mumbled, turning his body a little to face Clark. “How was your day?”
“Not bad. I’m behind, but I can catch up. How was yours?”
“Fine.” Lex rested his head on Clark’s chest.
Clark smiled softly and petted Lex’s back. “We should go down for dinner soon.”
“Few more minutes,” Lex muttered, lying against Clark once again. He dozed off once again and the book slipped from his fingers.
“You’re not going it alone anymore, Lex,” Clark whispered, enjoying the weight of Lex’s warm body on him, and hoping Lex would lean on him like this whenever he needed it.