Title: The Apple
Author: PepperjackCandy
Series: No
Archive : LexSlash, Smallville Plot Bunny Exchange, my writing at fanfiction.net
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Category: Drama/Mystery/Romance
Spoilers for: Nothing
Disclaimer: I own nothing Smallville-related, or related in any other way to Clark Kent, Superman or any of the various creations of the wonderful folks at DC Comics.
Thank you to both Snuffleupagus and Kel for the beta. And to Sam, who inspired this with the "Lex not Lionel's Son" bunny on the Smallville Plot Bunny Exchange.
Feedback: Always welcome, either by e-mail or using the review system at fanfiction.net.
A/N: You can find information about rare blood types here:
http://www.bloodbook.com/rare.html
I'm also assuming that a positive test for RzRz will look like a positive test for A, B, or D:
http://learning.mgccc.cc.ms.us/science/blood/sld001.htm (I don't know what color the anti-RzRz serum bottle would be, so I'm winging it)
Inga is played by Ursula Andress (http://www.geocities.com/ursulaandress2/pictures.html). Admittedly, not as she looks now, but as she looked in her 20s.
======
2004
Clark was sitting in his calculus class when he heard the sirens. He ignored them, disregarding them as something the authorities obviously had under control.
But then Principal Kwan came to the door and called Chloe aside. Clark could barely make out what Kwan was saying, "Miss Sullivan. There's been a shooting at the fertilizer plant. Your father sustained a flesh wound. Normally I wouldn't have called you out of class for this, but word gets around fast in a town like Smallville, and I didn't want you to worry if you heard someone else talking about it."
"But the ambulance . . .?"
"Oh. That's Lex Luthor. He was . . . badly injured."
Lex! Clark raised his hand.
"Yes, Clark?" Mrs. Slovak said.
"May I go to the bathroom?"
"Certainly."
Clark stood and hurried to the door of the room, then after ducking around Kwan and Chloe, continued moving at a normal, human pace in the general direction of the boys' room, which he overshot and continued outside. Once he was outside, he switched to full speed and in a blink of an eye, he was in the waiting area of the emergency room of the hospital.
Moments later, the ambulance pulled up, and they wheeled Lex, a blood-soaked dressing on his chest, through the doors.
Clark longed to step forward and ask what had happened, but instead he held back and let the paramedics wheel Lex into the emergency room.
He paced around for a minute, working up his courage to ask about Lex's condition. "Excuse me."
"Yes?"
"I was wondering about Lex Luthor . . ."
"Clark? What are you doing here?"
Clark turned around to see his parents standing behind him, his father supporting his mother's weight.
"Mom? What happened?"
"Oh." She pouted. "I fell in the kitchen and twisted my ankle a little. Your father insisted that we had to come in, just in case something was broken."
By unspoken agreement, Clark took over supporting Martha while Jonathan went to get the attention of the triage nurses.
While Jonathan was at the desk, a man in a white coat came out from the back. "Excuse me. The nurses said you were asking about Lex Luthor?"
"Yes. Do you have any news?"
"I actually was wondering if you know which of his parents has Native American ancestry? You see, Mr. Luthor lost a lot of blood, and he has a rare blood type, and we don't have any of it in the county blood bank. It's critical we find some. Soon."
Clark's eyes widened and he shook his head slowly. "I'm sorry. I have no idea . . ."
Jonathan's head snapped up at the mention of Native American ancestry. "Doctor?" He asked. "Is he RzRz?"
"Why, yes."
A strange look came into Jonathan's eyes as he said, "If he's Rh positive, I have some blood stored here for my own use. You can use that if you need to."
"You're RzRz?"
Jonathan nodded, somewhat stiffly. "My grandfather was half Cheyenne."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Martha and Clark watched this exchange in silent fascination. Once the doctor had returned to the emergency room, Jonathan looked levelly at his son. "Is that why you're here? Because of Lex?"
Clark nodded. "He's hurt. I overheard Kwan telling Chloe that he's been shot. I couldn't stay at school knowing that he'd been injured."
"Do you think we'll give you a note for this?"
Clark drew himself up to his full height and looked his father squarely in the eye. "If I have to take a detention for skipping class, I will."
"Very well."
Clark wanted to ask why Jonathan had offered his own stored blood for Lex, and about the hardness in his eyes when he did it. But the conversation stopped then, because the nurse came to take Martha back to have her ankle examined and Jonathan went with her.
Leaving Clark in the waiting area, alone with his questions.
Jonathan and Martha left the hospital half an hour later, Martha unable to take her eyes off of her son, standing alone in the waiting area, Jonathan studiously ignoring him.
Clark wilted a little at his parents' lack of support. Lex needs me, he reassured himself. My folks will be all right, but for Lex to come out and not have anyone waiting for him. That would be just . . . wrong.
So, assembling a large stack of outdated magazines to keep himself entertained, Clark settled down to wait.
It was dark outside, and he'd yawned his way through his second several-years-old Field and Stream magazine when the triage nurse stuck her head out through the admission window. "Mr. Kent?"
Clark startled as he looked up. "Yes?"
"Could you . . ." She looked around. "Could you come over here, please?"
Clark stood and walked over to the window.
"I'm not supposed to give information to anyone but Mr. Luthor's next-of-kin, but you've been here for so long that I felt that you deserved to know that Mr. Luthor is out of surgery and he's stable. He'll be in recovery for another couple of hours, so you might want to run out to get a bite to eat."
Clark was hungry - he hadn't eaten anything since lunch - but he was also reluctant to leave the waiting room. Even if he couldn't see Lex, he hoped that maybe Lex could feel his presence.
Evidently the nurse was good at reading faces, because she said, "Mr. Kent, you haven't had a bite to eat in the hours you've been here. I very much doubt Mr. Luthor will regain consciousness until morning. You can spare a few minutes to go down to the hospital cafeteria and get something to eat. You can even bring it back up here to eat it."
Clark thought about this for a moment, and nodded. "I guess I could leave for just a few minutes."
The nurse smiled. "Thank you. I'll worry a lot less knowing that you've been fed."
Minutes later, Clark returned, bearing a warmed-over hamburger, an assortment of vegetables from the salad bar, and a brownie. He took his seat in the waiting room and began to eat.
He was halfway through the brownie when the outside doors slid open, and Lionel Luthor strode in, followed by hordes of reporters clamoring for a statement, lightbulbs flashing.
Suddenly, Clark was very, very glad that Lionel hogged the spotlight whenever Fertilizer Plant Number 3 made the news. The reporters, figuring that Lex wasn't important for himself, just as Lionel's heir, had waited for the big fish to come along before swarming.
Lionel stopped inside the door of the hospital and turned to face the reporters, forcing them to crowd together in the ten foot by six foot area of the sidewalk outside the door where he could still be seen and heard.
"As you have heard, my son has been injured in a mishap at our plant here in Smallville. I have been assured that he will make a full recovery."
As the reporters were still clamoring, Lionel wordlessly dismissed them and walked over to the admission desk. Before the triage nurse could get to the window, though, he seemed to feel Clark watching him. He turned and advanced on Clark slowly.
"I remember you. You were that Kent kid. Clifford."
"Clark."
"Clark. Yes. That was the name. Are you here waiting for a sick family member?"
"No, sir. I heard that Lex had been injured, and . . ."
"Oh. Well, you can go home then. I can take over from here, and besides, we will be moving Lex to Metropolis General anyhow."
Clark couldn't believe it. Not breaking eye contact with Lionel, he stood. "Move . . .?"
"Why, yes. You don't expect me to leave him *here*, do you?"
"What's wrong with Smallville?"
"Nothing's wrong with it, of course," Lionel condescended, "it's just that I feel he would be more comfortable closer to home."
But Smallville is his home! Clark managed to choke back the words before he said them. Instead, he said, "I would like to see Lex before you take him to Metropolis."
"Oh, would you?"
"Yes. I . . . he's my friend."
"You must be pretty hard up for friends, then." Lionel snorted.
Clark never could understand why Lionel was always so insulting towards his son. Even at Jonathan's worst, he was never nasty to Clark. Well, there was that time he came to Clark's football practice and said that he was just there to make sure no one got hurt. With those words, Jonathan had, perversely, caused a hurt that still pained him occasionally, but other than that . . .
Clark finally came back to himself, drawing himself up to his full height. "Lex has been a very good friend to me. And I think that I should be a good friend to him, as well, and stay here until he's out of the recovery room."
"He's still in recovery?" Lionel demanded.
Clark nodded slowly. "Surgery took a long time."
"Dammit!" Lionel swore, spinning and walking to the triage window.
He pounded on the counter. "Hello?!?" He demanded loudly.
The nurse came to the window. "Yes, sir." She said quickly.
"Is Lex Luthor here?"
"Are you family?"
"Yes," Sneering, he leaned towards the nurse, looking at her name tag, "Lorna, I am. I'm *his* *father.*"
Lorna remained unruffled in the face of Lionel's hostility. "Ah. Well, Mr. Luthor, your son was injured in a shooting incident at his plant."
Clark's heart dropped through his stomach as he heard this. He'd known that Lex had been shot, but it still was disturbing to hear someone say it aloud.
Lorna continued. "Mr. Luthor has been through several hours of surgery, and will require at *least* another hour in recovery before he can be transferred to ICU."
"You're sending him to intensive care?"
"Yes, sir. He needs constant monitoring. He was in a very bad way when he came in. Only luck and two pints of blood kept him alive."
"Blood?" Lionel was livid. "You gave him *blood*?"
Clark flinched at his tone. What's wrong with giving him blood?
"Let me speak to the doctor." Lionel said.
"Just a moment, sir, if you'll come this way."
Lionel followed Lorna into the back area, and a moment later, Lorna reappeared in the admission window. "Could you come over here, sir?" She asked quietly.
Clark looked around to make sure that he was still the only person in the room. Satisfied that he was, he walked over to her.
"Mr. Luthor has just been transferred up to SICU," at Clark's confused expression, she explained, "the surgical intensive care unit. It's up on seven. Any elevator will take you up there, you can follow the signs to the actual unit. It'll be at least ten minutes until the doctor can see Lionel Luthor, and then the explanation of the surgery will take some time after that. Should buy you enough time to see your friend." She grinned at him conspiratorially.
Returning her smile, Clark headed off to the elevators.
He followed Lorna's directions and, sure enough, just down the hallway from the elevators, Clark found a door marked Surgical Intensive Care Unit. Looking around, he found notices of visiting hours, assorted fliers for support groups and such, but nothing like a buzzer or intercom or anything, so, nervously, he pulled the door open.
The room beyond was nearly silent, except for the quiet voices of the nurses conversing, the beeps of the monitors, and, in a few cubicles, the sound of a television or a conversation.
He looked around for a moment, then approached the closest nurse at the nurse's station.
"Excuse me," he said softly.
The nurse looked up. "Oh! It's you!"
"Pardon me?"
"You're the young man who's been waiting all day to see Mr. Luthor, aren't you?" She smiled. When he nodded, she continued. "He's in Bed C."
Clark looked at the array of glassed-in cubicles lining the other side of the unit, noticing letters hanging from the ceiling. He walked to the one with the letter "C" hanging above it. "Thank you." He said to the nurse, as he stepped into the cubicle.
Inside the cubicle, Lex was paler than usual, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling slowly as he breathed.
In that moment, Clark's heart broke. He walked quietly over to Lex's bedside, counting each breath, not daring to touch his friend. He looked up at the silent heart monitor, watching the jagged, reassuring line as it traced each beat of Lex's heart.
He could almost hear the steady beat of the heart as it traced the line. In fact, he was starting to think he *could* hear it. But that was impossible.
"Lex." He whispered quietly. Before he could say anything else, the heart rate he thought he heard sped up a little. Clark looked up at the monitor and saw the line had sped up as well.
I can hear his heart? From over here? Clark thought disbelievingly.
He tried again. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I just wanted to tell you that I'm here and I'll stay as long as they'll let me, which looks to be about 10:00 tomorrow morning, from the hours posted on the door."
Lex's heart rate sped up again as Clark spoke to him. Well, evidently, he can hear me and I can hear his heart. Weird, Clark thought awedly.
Unable to take Lex's closeness anymore without doing something about it, Clark reached out and brushed his left hand lightly down Lex's right cheek. At his initial touch, Lex's heart rate sped up, then it slowed down markedly as Clark's touch persisted.
He seems to like this. Clark thought amazedly.
The reprieve from the day's tension was shattered by the sound of Lionel Luthor's voice. "I've come to collect my son and take him to Metropolis General."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Luthor, but we cannot release him in his current condition. You'd never get any of the doctors to . . ."
"Oh. I assure you. I already have. The orders for his transfer should be coming through soon. The helicopter to pick him up will be here in less than an hour."
Lex is leaving? Lionel's taking him back to Metropolis? Clark thought despairingly. He briefly searched his mind for some way, any way, to stop that from happening. Before he could make even the barest beginnings of a plan, however, Lionel strode through the door of Lex's cubicle.
Clark heard him come in and pulled his hand away from Lex's face like he'd been burned. It wouldn't do for Lionel to see him caressing Lex's face like that.
"What are *you* doing here?" Lionel demanded. "You're that . . . boy from downstairs."
His back to Lex, Clark could hear Lex's heartbeat accelerate. Or was it his own he was hearing? A glance over his shoulder at the monitor told him that he was still hearing Lex's heartbeats.
Lex's fast, nearly panic-stricken heartbeats. Struck with a sudden fight-or-flight response, Clark drew himself up to defend Lex. "Yes. I am. And you're not taking him anywhere."
Lionel snorted. "It's already done. My helicopter's on the way, and the best doctors at Metropolis General are waiting for us to arrive. Unless you intend to kill me to stop me."
Clark backed down at this. "Of course not."
Just then, two men came in, a gurney between them. "Alexander Luthor?" The front one asked.
"Bed C." The nurse responded.
And Clark could only watch helplessly as his friend was bundled onto the gurney and whisked away.
As Clark left the hospital and began the long walk home, he discovered that, if he tried hard enough, he could still hear Lex's heartbeat, even as the helicopter took him farther and farther from home.
Clark's parents were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee when he got home. They looked up sharply as he entered the house, prompting him to ask, "What?"
Martha sighed. "Do you know what time it is?"
Clark shrugged, shaking his head. "I left my watch at home." He glanced at the clock. "2:00 a.m.?"
"Yes. It's 2:00. Your mother and I have to be up in *three* *hours.* I suppose you didn't think of *that*."
Clark couldn't help himself. Worry about Lex had taken up the last of his reserves. "I said that I'd left my watch at home. I had no idea what time it is!"
Jonathan bristled at this, but before he could respond in anger, Martha interposed herself between the two men. "Let's go to bed and talk about this in the morning. Later." She corrected herself. "I'm sure we'll all feel better after a few hours of sleep."
Once all of the Kents were ready for bed, Martha came to see Clark in his room.
She perched on the edge of his bed. "I just wanted to ask how Lex is doing."
Clark smiled. "Thanks. He's still . . . in intensive care. But I think they expect him to recover fully."
Martha nodded. "Good. And don't mind your father. I don't think it's really about how late you stayed out. He's been on edge all day."
"He has?"
Martha nodded. "Ever since we came home from the hospital." She stood and kissed Clark on the forehead. "So don't worry. Whatever's bothering your father will pass soon. I'm sure of it."
Once Martha left the room, Clark reached out with his hearing, searching for Lex's heartbeat. It was still slow, and regular, and Clark let the sound lull him to sleep.
***
Friday, Clark wanted a moment to check on Chloe, so made a point of being there for the bus. The bus had already stopped and was pulling away. Clark ran, not at an attention-getting speed, but quickly enough to get there in time for the driver to stop.
Clark climbed on board, nodded his thanks to the driver, and then threw himself into the seat in front of Chloe.
"You made it. I'm impressed." Chloe said.
"Yeah. Well, I wanted to make sure I got the chance to talk to you. How's your dad?"
"He's fine. The doctor down at the plant put one of those big bandages on it and sent him home. He's taking today off, my mom insisted."
"And how are you?"
Chloe smiled at him weakly. "Pretty good. I about lost it when Kwan told me that my dad had been shot, but they let me go right away so I could go home and see for myself that he's fine. Which doesn't explain why *you* disappeared right then."
"I . . . was feeling kind of sick. I went to the bathroom, and . . ."
Chloe turned slightly green. "That's fine, Clark. I don't think I want any details."
Satisfied that he wouldn't have to hear his friends complain that he skipped school to check on Lex, Clark changed the subject. "So, are either of you ready for the Government quiz today?"
Pete and Chloe both turned wide-eyed faces to Clark. "Government quiz?" Chloe said, looking at Pete. Then, wordlessly, both teens searched their bags for their Government textbooks, leaving Clark to his own thoughts for the rest of the ride.
***
Each of the teachers whose classes he'd cut assigned him a detention, which would take care of Friday afternoon, and the afternoons of Monday and Tuesday the next week. All day Friday, he periodically tuned into Lex's heartbeat, to reassure himself that his friend was doing all right.
When he finally returned home from school, he heard his parents talking in the living room.
Ever nosy, he asked, "What's up?"
Jonathan brandished a piece of paper at him. "This. It's a note from the hospital telling me that two pints of the blood that I stored there for my own use was 'accidentally destroyed,'" he sneered these two words.
"But, didn't you . . . ."
"Yes. Figures that Lionel Luthor would find some way to get out of any kind of obligation they have to me for saving their son." He spat.
Clark knew that Lex would certainly thank Jonathan for the blood, if Jonathan would listen to it. But he knew there was no way to convince Jonathan of that, so he just sighed heavily. "I'm sorry about that, Dad. I'm going to go out and get my chores done."
Clark beat a hasty retreat and stayed outside, lingering over his chores as long as he dared. Finally, Martha came after him. "Are you all right, Clark?"
"Yeah." He snapped the wire binding a bale of hay with his bare hands and began carrying tufts of hay into the stalls to feed their three horses.
Martha waited patiently while Clark tried to shut her out. Eventually, her son spoke again. "It's just never going to change, is it? My best friend nearly died yesterday, and all Dad can worry about is that he's not going to get a thank you note from Lionel. And trust me, by the time Lex is home, Lex'll be to blame for it. He'll drag out his book of platitudes and it'll all be 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.'"
"Your father's been a little tense since yesterday. It's nothing to do with you, I'm sure." She assured her son hastily.
Clark fixed her with a look that said that he was sure it did have to do with him.
"Are you coming in for dinner?"
Clark sighed. He knew there was no avoiding Jonathan forever. "Sure," he said as he followed Martha into the house.
Jonathan was in a grumpy world of his own through dinner, and afterwards, Clark retreated to the loft to work on his homework, the sound of Lex's heart keeping him company.
Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday passed in a flurry of chores, school, detention and homework.
On Wednesday, Clark sat in his last period class staring out the window. He hadn't seen Lex for almost a week, and the periodic checks of his heartbeat weren't doing it anymore.
He wondered if he'd dare jog out to Metropolis General after school to see Lex. He didn't know how his parents would take it, much less how he'd explain his sudden appearance in Metropolis to Lex.
He tuned in to Lex's heartbeat, which sounded louder than it had previously. For one brief, heartstopping moment, he thought that Lex was in some kind of distress, but then he realized that it was louder because it was . . . closer. And coming closer still with each passing second.
Clark's own heart rate accelerated as he realized that Lex must be on his way home.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl through the final forty minutes of class, which was doubly frustrating for Clark, whose natural speed was considerably faster than human speed.
Finally the bell rang, and before anyone, even Chloe and Pete, could sidetrack him, Clark was out of the building and off towards Luthor Manor.
Clark heard Lex's heartbeat coming up Route 83 towards Luthor Manor as he skidded to a stop outside the house's gates. As he stood there, a stretch limo came down the road, pulling to a stop outside the gate. One of the back doors opened, and Lex leaned out. "How come I'm not surprised to see you here?" He grinned. "Come on, hop in and we'll give you a ride the rest of the way to the house."
Clark cheerfully complied, pulling the door shut behind him as the gates slowly swung open.
"Shouldn't you still be in the hospital?" Clark asked from his seat directly across from Lex.
Lex shrugged one shoulder, wincing a little as he did so. "There's nothing they can do for me there that Inga can't."
"Inga?"
"My private nurse. She's in the car behind us."
Clark noticed the other car following behind them. "What will you need that you need a nurse for?" Why can't I do everything you need? He finished silently, wondering where this sudden need to protect Lex came from.
Lex laughed. "Nothing, really. I've been up and around several times a day, and I can *almost* get along without my pain pills. That's why I hired Inga, specifically. She's a friend from college. In addition to being an RN, she's also a med school student at Met U."
The limo came to a stop at the front door, and Lex leaned over to open it, noticing the puzzled expression on Clark's face. "My doctor didn't want me to go home without a nurse on hand. Inga will have lots of studying to do, which will take up her time. Plus, she really wants a look at the lab I have in the basement." He grinned shamelessly as he climbed out of the car.
Clark straggled along after him. "You have a lab in your basement?"
"Of course." Lex smiled. "What kind of mad scientist would I be without one?"
Clark stood by while Lex opened the door of the house, and Clark got his first look at Inga. Immediately, he decided that Lex had more reasons for choosing Inga to be his nurse than he had at first let on. She was attractive, and blonde, and had cleavage you could ski down. She could put out an eye with those things. Clark thought uncharitably.
Lex stopped. "Inga, this is Clark Kent. You'll see him around a lot in the next few days."
"Nice to meet you." The tall blonde said in a perfect midwestern twang.
"Where are you from?" Clark blurted out without thinking.
"Milwaukee." She smiled at him. "But my grandparents were all born in Sweden. Moved to Wisconsin, where my dad met my mom, and the rest . . ."
" . . is history." Clark concluded.
"Pretty much." She nodded.
"Are you two coming in, or should I have the staff move some comfortable chairs out here for you?"
"Oops." Inga grinned sheepishly.
"Sorry, Lex." Clark said with a smile as well.
Together, the trio walked into the castle.
Lex walked toward the study, but once she saw where he was going, Inga said, "Oh, no. You are *not* going back to work already. That desk chair will be murder for you. And besides, I need a desk so I can work on my term paper." She lifted the case she carried in her hand.
"So what should I do while you're monopolizing my desk?"
"Catch up with Clark here. I doubt he was able to get in to Metropolis while you were in the hospital." She looked around. "Do you have any *comfortable* furniture in this mausoleum?"
"Through there." Lex pointed towards a room that Clark had never been in before.
Together, they walked to the room and Lex opened the door. Inside was an extensive collection of furniture, most of which seemed to be from the Victorian era.
"You call this comfortable?" Inga asked.
"What?" Lex walked, slowly, over to a horsehair sofa, throwing himself onto it with a vigor that had him nearly bouncing right back off of it. "Look at the springs on this baby."
Clark tried, and failed, not to laugh. "You're always welcome at my house. Gingham curtains and all."
"Laugh it up, farmboy. I'll tell you that this was the height of comfort a hundred or so years ago."
Clark looked around until his eyes lit on an overstuffed paisley armchair. "How about this?"
Lex looked over at Inga, who nodded. "That's more what I was thinking of. Does that thing have an ottoman?"
Clark began pulling the armchair out of the morass of furniture, looking around for an ottoman. "I think that would work." He pointed.
As Clark dragged the chair into the corridor, Inga grabbed the ottoman.
"Now, should we move this into the study, or do you have somewhere else you'd like to sit?" Inga asked him.
"Why don't you tell me?" Lex asked. "What's with you? All of this hovering is making me nervous."
"Well, you hired me to be your nurse. And anyway, consider it payback for finals week junior year."
Lex chuckled. "You won't let me live that down, will you? And anyway, it worked, right?"
Inga snorted. "Yeah. But I only missed being dragged in front of the dean by *this* much."
"Yeah, well . . . ."
"And my odds didn't improve when they found out I'd gotten it from *you.*"
"What can I say? My reputation gets around." Lex grinned.
Inga sighed heavily and rolled her eyes melodramatically.
"And anyway, you had to take it every three hours, or it wouldn't work."
Clark began to panic. He'd known that Lex had done some shady things in his past, but to have given drugs to a friend to help her through finals . . .?
"You know," Lex said, obviously in response to something Inga had said, "You came through that cold so well, Griffin actually asked me for Grandma Cohen's address, to ask her for a batch when she had a bad cold the next semester.
"Yep." He continued. "Grandma told me that she was thrilled that I was so proud of her chicken soup, but I really should have kept it to myself, before she had to supply it to everyone at Princeton."
Clark was amazed, and amused, to hear this exchange. When their conversation died down, he moved the overstuffed chair and ottoman into the study.
"Clark! I have people to do things like that for me." Lex chided him.
Clark shrugged on his way past Lex to the storage room. "I can put it back in the hallway, if you'd like."
"Don't bother." Lex said in a faux-resigned tone. "What are you doing now?"
"Getting a chair for myself." Clark replied as he passed Lex carrying a chair that matched the one he'd brought in for Lex.
Once Clark's chair was set across from Lex's, Clark escorted Lex into the study. He would have helped his friend, but when he reached out a hand to steady him, Lex slapped it back, an indignant look on his face.
Clark and Inga hovered over Lex as he dropped his black overcoat to the floor and slowly lowered himself into the armchair.
"Yes?" He asked them testily.
"Can we get you anything?" Clark asked. "A drink? Something to eat?"
"Just. Sit. Down." Lex said with rapidly-thinning patience. He looked at Inga. "Both of you."
Clark sat in the chair he'd set aside for himself, and Inga walked back out to the foyer, where she picked up her laptop computer and returned to Lex's desk.
"So, what have you been up to?" Lex asked casually, leaning back in his chair and wincing as he propped his feet up on the ottoman.
Clark shrugged. "The usual. School. Chores. Detention." He mumbled that last word.
Lex leaned forward slightly, a strained expression on his face. "What? You've got detention?"
"Had, actually. Friday, Monday and Tuesday."
"Three days' detention? What did you do? Rob a bank?"
"No, I actually. I skipped school on Thursday." Clark *really* didn't want to have to explain to Lex why he'd skipped school, so he emphasized the words 'on Thursday.'
Lex picked up on this and thought. "You skipped school because I was shot?"
"Yeah." Clark responded sheepishly. "I sort of . . . heard some rumors that you'd been injured, and couldn't concentrate on my calc class. So I cut out and went to the hospital."
"I'm . . . not sure what to say." Lex responded. "I'm not sure whether I should thank you for being concerned, or *yell* at you for skipping school." The increasing volume of Lex's voice gave Clark a good guess which one he was leaning towards.
Clark tried desperately to keep his voice level. "Well, it's over now, and I've done my detentions, so there's really nothing you can do about it, can you?"
"I just . . . I just can't believe that you ducked out of school to be there when I was in the hospital."
"Disappointed?"
"No." Lex shook his head hurriedly. "Far from it. I certainly am not deluded enough to think that my father hurried up to get there."
Clark, unwilling to tell the truth, unable to lie about this, looked at the floor at his feet.
"Clark . . ." Lex asked softly. "When did my father show up at the hospital?"
Clark sort of looked up at Lex, only rather than looking directly at him, he glanced up through his eyelashes in a way that always hit Lex right in the stomach, as it was doing now.
"It was . . . late." Clark said.
"How late?"
Lex could see Clark gathering his courage to answer. "Really late. Like . . . after dark."
"But it was still Thursday?"
Clark nodded. "Barely."
Lex laughed. "I *think* that's some kind of record. The last time I was hospitalized, I didn't see the bastard until just before I was checked out."
"Which hospital were you in?"
"Then? Metropolis General."
Clark nodded. "That's why he showed up here. To 'rescue' you from Smallville Memorial."
Lex snorted. "Yeah. That sounds like him."
Clark was silent for a long moment. "Actually, that might not have been a bad idea."
"What?"
"You said that your grandmother's name is Cohen? Is she Jewish?"
Lex nodded. "I am Jewish. Well, on my mother's side."
"What about your dad?"
Lex shrugged. "German, Scottish. A little French on my paternal grandmother's side. Why?"
"You see, when they first . . . typed your blood?" He said this as a question, because he wasn't sure that was the correct term. When Lex nodded, he continued, "they said that you had some kind of rare blood type that Native Americans get."
Lex snorted. "Not likely."
Inga interrupted them. "You're right. It's not likely, but would you mind if I send some of your blood out for testing? We talked about this in my hematology class, and I never expected one of my friends to have even the possibility of having a rare blood type. How did you know about it, Clark?"
"I was waiting in the waiting area and the doctor came out and asked me about it. They didn't have any of that blood type in the Lowell County blood bank."
"So they must have found that they didn't need it after all? Since Lex is fine now."
Clark shook his head. "My dad has some blood stored at the hospital just in case. Turns out he has that blood type."
Inga turned appealing eyes to Lex, who sighed resignedly, extending his right arm, elbow-side down, to her. "All right. Do whatever you have to do."
***
Half an hour late for dinner, Clark ran home. His parents were sitting at the table. "Sorry I'm late," he babbled, "but Lex came home from the hospital. I just . . . went by his house and found him there, and we got to talking, and . . . . What's the matter?"
Too late, he noticed how stiffly his parents were sitting.
"Ask your father. He's certainly not telling me." Martha snapped as she stood and left the table.
Clark watched his father. Jonathan watched him back.
Finally, Jonathan spoke, "When's Lex's birthday?"
Being the last thing Clark expected to hear, it took Clark a minute to formulate an answer. "June. June 15."
Jonathan nodded shortly, "Of . . .?"
"1980."
Jonathan's expression grew even grimmer, if such a thing were possible.
"You all right, Dad?"
"Yeah. I'm fine." Jonathan stood and walked out the back door.
The door closed with a slam, leaving Clark alone in the kitchen. "Well, looks like I'm on my own for dinner," he said to the silence.
***
The next day, Clark avoided the stressful environment of his home at all costs, and headed immediately for Lex's house after school.
He walked in to find Lex in that same overstuffed chair. The only sign that he'd moved in the previous 24 hours was that he was wearing a different suit than he'd been wearing the day before. Inga was nowhere to be seen.
Lex looked over his shoulder with a smile. "Come on in, Clark."
Feeling better than he had since he left the previous day, Clark broke out in a wide grin and walked into the room. He saw a shadow of his own smile on Lex's face.
"You look happy." Lex said.
Clark shrugged. "I guess I'm glad you're home."
Lex's smile grew larger. "Well, I'm glad to be home."
"How're you feeling?" Clark asked as he plopped into the chair he'd placed across from Lex's the day before.
"Fine." Lex shrugged. "Inga still won't let me do any work, though. She says the stress would set my progress back. I think she just wants to keep my desk to herself."
"Hey! I heard that!" Inga said as she came into the room. "And, yes, I do want to keep your desk. It's a very nice desk and once I'm a doctor, I think I'll use my first million to buy it from you."
"So? Any news?"
"It's . . . strange." Inga said, looking at the slip of paper in her hand. "You came back negative for RzRz, but . . . " she held the slip of paper up to the light, squinting at it. "It almost looks like someone erased the vertical line that turns the minus sign into a plus sign."
"You don't think that could have happened, do you?" Lex asked.
"Of course not." Inga insisted. "Although, where you're concerned stranger things have happened."
Lex thought for a moment. "Let me make a few phone calls."
***
Martha Kent looked out the window of her house worriedly. She had heard Jonathan rummaging around in the attic all morning, and then the sound of their truck speeding off into the distance around noon, and hadn't heard anything from her husband since. God, please let him be all right, she prayed.
***
Jonathan threw open the door to Lionel Luthor's office, his secretary protesting feebly that Mr. Luthor was not to be interrupted.
Lionel was yelling at someone over speakerphone while a buxom redhead buffed his nails. "I don't care about the contract! Your company . . . " He looked up and saw Jonathan. "Ah, Mr. . . . Kent, is it?"
"Cut the bullshit, Luthor. I know what you did to my son."
Lionel never took his eyes from Jonathan's. "Can I get back to you, Bill?"
Without waiting for a response, Lionel disconnected from his call. "Now what is it you seem to think I've done to your . . . Mark? Carl?"
"It's Clark, and he's not the son I'm talking about." Jonathan slid a photograph of what appeared to be Lex in overalls onto the desk in front of him.
"So, you got my son to dress up in some kind of costume . . ."
"Not your son. *My* son. This is his great-grandfather, Jeremiah Kent." Jonathan snarled.
"Oh? And how do you intend to prove it, if it is true?"
"I don't need to." Jonathan smiled coldly. "Enough people still in town remember my grandfather. All I'd need to do is make a few suggestions around town. Suggestions that I just *might* have already made. And just in case you get the idea that Plant Number 3 can have a convenient catastrophe that leaves everyone in Smallville dead, I also have a cousin, who's the circulation manager for the Topeka Star. Grandpa and Grandma got married in Topeka. Their wedding picture ran in the Star, and I'm sure they have a few copies of that old issue around somewhere. It would be easy enough for someone to stumble across it and notice the resemblance between Grandpa and Lex."
"So, what do you want?" Lionel's voice was calm, but Jonathan could see that he was rattled.
"Just the truth."
***
Toby slouched into the castle without knocking. "I've got your order here." He held up a ratty-looking paper bag.
"You sure that's the right stuff?" With considerably more difficulty than he let on, Lex stood.
"Of course I am. You think your father'd interfere or something?" He caught the look that flashed across Lex's face. "You do think so, don't you?"
Lex fixed Toby with a flat stare. "Your payment is on the sideboard."
Toby walked over to the sideboard and picked it up. "Let me know how it works out, Sitting Bull." He chortled as he left the house.
After the door slammed shut behind him, the trio stared at the brown paper bag.
"So," Lex said, not taking his eyes off of the bag, "what next? I suppose you'll want some of my blood again?"
Inga nodded. "Just a couple of drops, though. Let's go down to the lab. I'll need a slide for this."
The three looked at the bag again. Then, sighing, Lex picked up the bag and they headed for the basement.
Once in the lab, Inga pulled out a slide and the small paper packet that contained a lancet. Then she opened the bag and took out a small plastic bottle with a peach-colored lid. Lex obediently held out his hand.
Inga quickly unwrapped the lancet and deftly poked Lex's finger.
He winced once at the jab of the lancet and watched as his blood welled up. "Well, here goes." He smiled wanly at Clark as Inga took his hand and put two drops of blood on the slide.
She popped open the seal on the bottle and put two drops of the serum on top of the two drops of blood.
Time slowed to a stop as all three huddled over the slide, watching as the clear, colorless serum gradually began to cloud and the dark red blood changed to a brighter, orange color.
Inga looked up at Lex solemnly. "Congratulations. You're type RzRz."
***
"The truth?" Lionel snarled. "All right. Here it is."
Lionel motioned for Jonathan to take a seat as he stood. Jonathan refused to sit, instead remaining standing.
"You're right. Your poorly-funded lawsuit was justified. Lex was, in fact, the result of your . . . affair with my sister."
He began to pace. "But what would you have done with a son? A poor farmer, barely able to make ends meet. And with a new girlfriend. Would, what's her name? Martha? Have stood by you if she'd known that you'd fathered a baby from a one-night stand?"
"It wasn't a one-night stand." Jonathan snarled.
Lionel laughed once, shortly. "Oh. Well, a long weekend in Aspen, then. Same thing under a different name. After all, once you returned to Metropolis, you lost no time throwing her over for Martha. Poor, poor Alexandra. Pregnant and alone."
"She and I never had any kind of commitment. I was still getting over Nell, and she'd just broken up with that fiancé of hers."
"Of course not. She never wanted you to know that she was pregnant, you know that?"
Jonathan shook his head.
"Yes. She wasn't entirely sure which of the two of you was the father. Not that it mattered in the end."
"What do you . . .?"
"Well, what was poor Alexandra to do? Have the poor, fatherless bastard child, and raise him relying forever on the kindness of relatives to support her? Or give the child to someone who needed him."
"You."
"Yes. Me. And Lily. Lily married me hoping to have a houseful of children. But a case of mumps in college had taken care of that. I've never been able to father children. So I needed Lex."
"But Alexandra died."
"Yes, she did." Lionel sighed. "Poor thing couldn't handle the stress of the pregnancy. She died in childbirth. I named Lex after her."
"And when I . . ."
"And when you claimed that Lex might be yours, and sued for custody, it was a simple matter to fix the paternity test results. Even the one that *your* lawyer ordered. I own Metropolis after all."
"You bastard." Jonathan hissed. "I never thought that even you could steal a child from his father." He headed for the door of the office.
"Jonathan." Lionel's voice stopped him dead. "You will *not* tell Lex the truth. I told you. I need him. If I find out that you have so much as hinted to him that he's your get, I'll ruin your family. Good-bye, Jonathan." Lionel had paced around to his desk again, where he sat down in his chair and turned back to his phone, dismissing Jonathan like he wasn't even there.
Fuming, Jonathan left the office, slamming the door behind him.
***
"But neither of my parents have any Native American blood." Lex said, shaking his head disbelievingly.
"Maybe . . ." Inga stopped that thought before it even began.
Lex understood her and nodded his head. "It would explain why my father hates me, but I can't believe that my mother would cheat on him."
"Maybe you were adopted." Clark offered, thinking that never in a million years that would be the truth.
Clark had never understood why a light bulb was used in comic books to represent an idea. That was before he saw Lex's eyes light up. "My Aunt Alexandra!"
"Who?" Both asked simultaneously.
"My father's sister. It would make sense. I was named after her. I was always told that I was named after her." He laughed shortly. "Of course, I was also told that she died a few days before I was born, but if I'm her son, that can't possibly be true."
"And if you are her son, who's your father?" Clark couldn't help asking.
The three sat around for a moment, staring at the congealing blood mixture on the slide. "Don't suppose it could be a false positive?" Lex asked.
"Not likely." Inga said.
They lapsed into silence again.
Inga broke the silence. "I've got it. When she was a small child, your aunt was abducted by . . ."
"Aliens?" Lex asked, laughing.
"Indians." Inga replied, her voice growing gradually more melodramatic. "She grew up among them, finally falling in love with a brave. Their love was beautiful, but doomed to be short-lived, for when the rest of the tribe found out that she was pregnant, they cast her out, forcing her to return to your father's family. Which is, of course, when she died in childbirth."
"I think you read too many romance novels." Lex laughed.
"And do you know how many stereotypes there are in that scenario?" Clark asked, laughing with Lex.
"Well, it was an idea. I bet the two of you can't come up with a better solution."
An idea had been dancing around in Clark's head ever since they saw the positive reaction, but only now did he have the courage to voice it. "Could my dad be your father?"
***
Deflated and defeated, Jonathan returned home. All he wanted was to take a couple of aspirin and go back to bed.
Martha greeted him at the door. "Where have you been? I've been worried sick."
"Don't make me talk about it." Jonathan moaned as he threw himself into his chair.
"Now I really am worried. Are you all right? Is Clark all right?"
Jonathan laughed a little hysterically. "Oh, yes. I'm fine. Clark's fine. I've just given Clark a brother."
Martha sat down hard in her chair. "You aren't saying that . . ."
Adrenaline shot through Jonathan as he sat up to face her. "Oh, no. Nothing like that. This is something that happened before we even met. About two days before."
"Two days before . . . Twenty-five years ago?"
Jonathan nodded.
Suddenly, everything that had happened since Thursday clicked into place and her eyes widened. "Lex. Lex Luthor is your son."
Jonathan nodded. "I suspected. I even tried to sue for custody, but the paternity test came back saying that I couldn't possibly be his father. Alex and I weren't steady or anything - it was a weekend fling, so I accepted that someone else could be his father. Until last Thursday."
"Last Thursday?"
"When the doctor told me that he has the same rare blood type I do. I just *knew* that Lionel had rigged the blood test all those years ago."
"Which explains why you've been so out of it this week." She crossed her arms and leaned back in her thinking pose. "So what do we do now?"
"Nothing. I can't tell him. Lionel threatened to ruin us if I do. He needs Lex to be his heir."
"That explains why you've always hated Lionel. But if you've known all along that Lionel wasn't his father, why have you always been so mistrustful of Lex?"
"You should know that better than anyone, Martha. I may have . . . created him, but Lionel raised him."
"Yes." A voice interrupted, and the pair looked up, directly at Lex, "but Lily Luthor raised me, too. And my mother was one of the best women I've ever known."
Jonathan and Lex stared at each other for a long moment, the only sound in the room the ticking of the clock in the kitchen.
Finally, Martha made eye contact with Inga and motioned towards the kitchen. The two women withdrew from the line of fire.
"Are you really Lex's biological father?" Clark asked.
Jonathan nodded. "I only just found out the truth myself. Alexandra Luthor, Lionel's sister, was his biological mother. I just got back from Lionel's office. He told me. He also told me that . . ." He was interrupted as Clark burst out the front door of the house.
Lex looked back at Jonathan.
"He told me that he'd ruin us if I told you the truth." Jonathan said pleadingly.
"Don't worry, Mr. Kent." Lex didn't know if he'd ever be able to call Jonathan anything but that. "I'm not without resources. If nothing else, I'm rightful heir to half of my grandfather's holdings. Nothing will happen to you or to Mrs. Kent. And I can promise you that no harm will come to Clark if I can do anything about it."
Then, Lex ran outside to catch up with Clark.
Clark was nowhere to be seen, but Lex gambled that he was up in the loft, and he was right. He climbed the stairs carefully, since it was dark, and he couldn't see where he was going. Only the metaphorical light of Clark ahead of him illuminated his way.
"Clark," he said softly when he reached the top of the stairs.
Clark was seated on the floor, knees pulled up, his forehead resting on them.
Lex walked closer. "Clark." He said a little more loudly.
Clark looked up, his face tear-stained. "I'm happy for you. That you know the truth. I really am, but . . ."
"But?"
"But I'm selfish. I don't want it to be true. I don't want you to be my," his voice caught, "to be my brother."
Lex's face shut down. "Oh. I understand." He headed for the stairs.
Before he knew what had happened, Clark was blocking his way. "No. You don't. At least I hope you don't. This is coming out all wrong," he said frustratedly, "I don't want you to be my brother, because I have . . . other feelings for you."
Hope blossomed in Lex's eyes. "You do?"
Clark nodded. "But I can't because . . ." He looked away.
Lex grabbed his face and turned it back so that their eyes met. "No. We aren't brothers."
"But we have the same father."
"We're not brothers in any way that means anything. Look, two guys can be brothers in that it-would-be-incestuous way three ways. One, biologically. You're adopted. Not a problem. Two, legally. Legally, you're Jonathan Kent's only son. I'm Lionel Luthor's son, legally, and I'm a bit old for him to throw me back." He grinned. "Three, being raised together. I mean, if Mike and Carol Brady never adopted each other's kids, Bobby and Cindy together would be . . . icky. But Marcia and Greg, on the other hand . . . "
"Ewwww." Clark said, as he began to laugh.
"Don't tell me you've never thought about it." Lex said wryly.
Clark realized that there was only one thing standing in the way of him and Lex being together.
"I said that I have feelings for you. Do you . . ."
Lex smiled, taking Clark's face between his hands and running his hands back to tangle his fingers in Clark's hair. "I most certainly do." He responded.
And then he kissed him.
Author: PepperjackCandy
Series: No
Archive : LexSlash, Smallville Plot Bunny Exchange, my writing at fanfiction.net
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Category: Drama/Mystery/Romance
Spoilers for: Nothing
Disclaimer: I own nothing Smallville-related, or related in any other way to Clark Kent, Superman or any of the various creations of the wonderful folks at DC Comics.
Thank you to both Snuffleupagus and Kel for the beta. And to Sam, who inspired this with the "Lex not Lionel's Son" bunny on the Smallville Plot Bunny Exchange.
Feedback: Always welcome, either by e-mail or using the review system at fanfiction.net.
A/N: You can find information about rare blood types here:
http://www.bloodbook.com/rare.html
I'm also assuming that a positive test for RzRz will look like a positive test for A, B, or D:
http://learning.mgccc.cc.ms.us/science/blood/sld001.htm (I don't know what color the anti-RzRz serum bottle would be, so I'm winging it)
Inga is played by Ursula Andress (http://www.geocities.com/ursulaandress2/pictures.html). Admittedly, not as she looks now, but as she looked in her 20s.
======
2004
Clark was sitting in his calculus class when he heard the sirens. He ignored them, disregarding them as something the authorities obviously had under control.
But then Principal Kwan came to the door and called Chloe aside. Clark could barely make out what Kwan was saying, "Miss Sullivan. There's been a shooting at the fertilizer plant. Your father sustained a flesh wound. Normally I wouldn't have called you out of class for this, but word gets around fast in a town like Smallville, and I didn't want you to worry if you heard someone else talking about it."
"But the ambulance . . .?"
"Oh. That's Lex Luthor. He was . . . badly injured."
Lex! Clark raised his hand.
"Yes, Clark?" Mrs. Slovak said.
"May I go to the bathroom?"
"Certainly."
Clark stood and hurried to the door of the room, then after ducking around Kwan and Chloe, continued moving at a normal, human pace in the general direction of the boys' room, which he overshot and continued outside. Once he was outside, he switched to full speed and in a blink of an eye, he was in the waiting area of the emergency room of the hospital.
Moments later, the ambulance pulled up, and they wheeled Lex, a blood-soaked dressing on his chest, through the doors.
Clark longed to step forward and ask what had happened, but instead he held back and let the paramedics wheel Lex into the emergency room.
He paced around for a minute, working up his courage to ask about Lex's condition. "Excuse me."
"Yes?"
"I was wondering about Lex Luthor . . ."
"Clark? What are you doing here?"
Clark turned around to see his parents standing behind him, his father supporting his mother's weight.
"Mom? What happened?"
"Oh." She pouted. "I fell in the kitchen and twisted my ankle a little. Your father insisted that we had to come in, just in case something was broken."
By unspoken agreement, Clark took over supporting Martha while Jonathan went to get the attention of the triage nurses.
While Jonathan was at the desk, a man in a white coat came out from the back. "Excuse me. The nurses said you were asking about Lex Luthor?"
"Yes. Do you have any news?"
"I actually was wondering if you know which of his parents has Native American ancestry? You see, Mr. Luthor lost a lot of blood, and he has a rare blood type, and we don't have any of it in the county blood bank. It's critical we find some. Soon."
Clark's eyes widened and he shook his head slowly. "I'm sorry. I have no idea . . ."
Jonathan's head snapped up at the mention of Native American ancestry. "Doctor?" He asked. "Is he RzRz?"
"Why, yes."
A strange look came into Jonathan's eyes as he said, "If he's Rh positive, I have some blood stored here for my own use. You can use that if you need to."
"You're RzRz?"
Jonathan nodded, somewhat stiffly. "My grandfather was half Cheyenne."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome."
Martha and Clark watched this exchange in silent fascination. Once the doctor had returned to the emergency room, Jonathan looked levelly at his son. "Is that why you're here? Because of Lex?"
Clark nodded. "He's hurt. I overheard Kwan telling Chloe that he's been shot. I couldn't stay at school knowing that he'd been injured."
"Do you think we'll give you a note for this?"
Clark drew himself up to his full height and looked his father squarely in the eye. "If I have to take a detention for skipping class, I will."
"Very well."
Clark wanted to ask why Jonathan had offered his own stored blood for Lex, and about the hardness in his eyes when he did it. But the conversation stopped then, because the nurse came to take Martha back to have her ankle examined and Jonathan went with her.
Leaving Clark in the waiting area, alone with his questions.
Jonathan and Martha left the hospital half an hour later, Martha unable to take her eyes off of her son, standing alone in the waiting area, Jonathan studiously ignoring him.
Clark wilted a little at his parents' lack of support. Lex needs me, he reassured himself. My folks will be all right, but for Lex to come out and not have anyone waiting for him. That would be just . . . wrong.
So, assembling a large stack of outdated magazines to keep himself entertained, Clark settled down to wait.
It was dark outside, and he'd yawned his way through his second several-years-old Field and Stream magazine when the triage nurse stuck her head out through the admission window. "Mr. Kent?"
Clark startled as he looked up. "Yes?"
"Could you . . ." She looked around. "Could you come over here, please?"
Clark stood and walked over to the window.
"I'm not supposed to give information to anyone but Mr. Luthor's next-of-kin, but you've been here for so long that I felt that you deserved to know that Mr. Luthor is out of surgery and he's stable. He'll be in recovery for another couple of hours, so you might want to run out to get a bite to eat."
Clark was hungry - he hadn't eaten anything since lunch - but he was also reluctant to leave the waiting room. Even if he couldn't see Lex, he hoped that maybe Lex could feel his presence.
Evidently the nurse was good at reading faces, because she said, "Mr. Kent, you haven't had a bite to eat in the hours you've been here. I very much doubt Mr. Luthor will regain consciousness until morning. You can spare a few minutes to go down to the hospital cafeteria and get something to eat. You can even bring it back up here to eat it."
Clark thought about this for a moment, and nodded. "I guess I could leave for just a few minutes."
The nurse smiled. "Thank you. I'll worry a lot less knowing that you've been fed."
Minutes later, Clark returned, bearing a warmed-over hamburger, an assortment of vegetables from the salad bar, and a brownie. He took his seat in the waiting room and began to eat.
He was halfway through the brownie when the outside doors slid open, and Lionel Luthor strode in, followed by hordes of reporters clamoring for a statement, lightbulbs flashing.
Suddenly, Clark was very, very glad that Lionel hogged the spotlight whenever Fertilizer Plant Number 3 made the news. The reporters, figuring that Lex wasn't important for himself, just as Lionel's heir, had waited for the big fish to come along before swarming.
Lionel stopped inside the door of the hospital and turned to face the reporters, forcing them to crowd together in the ten foot by six foot area of the sidewalk outside the door where he could still be seen and heard.
"As you have heard, my son has been injured in a mishap at our plant here in Smallville. I have been assured that he will make a full recovery."
As the reporters were still clamoring, Lionel wordlessly dismissed them and walked over to the admission desk. Before the triage nurse could get to the window, though, he seemed to feel Clark watching him. He turned and advanced on Clark slowly.
"I remember you. You were that Kent kid. Clifford."
"Clark."
"Clark. Yes. That was the name. Are you here waiting for a sick family member?"
"No, sir. I heard that Lex had been injured, and . . ."
"Oh. Well, you can go home then. I can take over from here, and besides, we will be moving Lex to Metropolis General anyhow."
Clark couldn't believe it. Not breaking eye contact with Lionel, he stood. "Move . . .?"
"Why, yes. You don't expect me to leave him *here*, do you?"
"What's wrong with Smallville?"
"Nothing's wrong with it, of course," Lionel condescended, "it's just that I feel he would be more comfortable closer to home."
But Smallville is his home! Clark managed to choke back the words before he said them. Instead, he said, "I would like to see Lex before you take him to Metropolis."
"Oh, would you?"
"Yes. I . . . he's my friend."
"You must be pretty hard up for friends, then." Lionel snorted.
Clark never could understand why Lionel was always so insulting towards his son. Even at Jonathan's worst, he was never nasty to Clark. Well, there was that time he came to Clark's football practice and said that he was just there to make sure no one got hurt. With those words, Jonathan had, perversely, caused a hurt that still pained him occasionally, but other than that . . .
Clark finally came back to himself, drawing himself up to his full height. "Lex has been a very good friend to me. And I think that I should be a good friend to him, as well, and stay here until he's out of the recovery room."
"He's still in recovery?" Lionel demanded.
Clark nodded slowly. "Surgery took a long time."
"Dammit!" Lionel swore, spinning and walking to the triage window.
He pounded on the counter. "Hello?!?" He demanded loudly.
The nurse came to the window. "Yes, sir." She said quickly.
"Is Lex Luthor here?"
"Are you family?"
"Yes," Sneering, he leaned towards the nurse, looking at her name tag, "Lorna, I am. I'm *his* *father.*"
Lorna remained unruffled in the face of Lionel's hostility. "Ah. Well, Mr. Luthor, your son was injured in a shooting incident at his plant."
Clark's heart dropped through his stomach as he heard this. He'd known that Lex had been shot, but it still was disturbing to hear someone say it aloud.
Lorna continued. "Mr. Luthor has been through several hours of surgery, and will require at *least* another hour in recovery before he can be transferred to ICU."
"You're sending him to intensive care?"
"Yes, sir. He needs constant monitoring. He was in a very bad way when he came in. Only luck and two pints of blood kept him alive."
"Blood?" Lionel was livid. "You gave him *blood*?"
Clark flinched at his tone. What's wrong with giving him blood?
"Let me speak to the doctor." Lionel said.
"Just a moment, sir, if you'll come this way."
Lionel followed Lorna into the back area, and a moment later, Lorna reappeared in the admission window. "Could you come over here, sir?" She asked quietly.
Clark looked around to make sure that he was still the only person in the room. Satisfied that he was, he walked over to her.
"Mr. Luthor has just been transferred up to SICU," at Clark's confused expression, she explained, "the surgical intensive care unit. It's up on seven. Any elevator will take you up there, you can follow the signs to the actual unit. It'll be at least ten minutes until the doctor can see Lionel Luthor, and then the explanation of the surgery will take some time after that. Should buy you enough time to see your friend." She grinned at him conspiratorially.
Returning her smile, Clark headed off to the elevators.
He followed Lorna's directions and, sure enough, just down the hallway from the elevators, Clark found a door marked Surgical Intensive Care Unit. Looking around, he found notices of visiting hours, assorted fliers for support groups and such, but nothing like a buzzer or intercom or anything, so, nervously, he pulled the door open.
The room beyond was nearly silent, except for the quiet voices of the nurses conversing, the beeps of the monitors, and, in a few cubicles, the sound of a television or a conversation.
He looked around for a moment, then approached the closest nurse at the nurse's station.
"Excuse me," he said softly.
The nurse looked up. "Oh! It's you!"
"Pardon me?"
"You're the young man who's been waiting all day to see Mr. Luthor, aren't you?" She smiled. When he nodded, she continued. "He's in Bed C."
Clark looked at the array of glassed-in cubicles lining the other side of the unit, noticing letters hanging from the ceiling. He walked to the one with the letter "C" hanging above it. "Thank you." He said to the nurse, as he stepped into the cubicle.
Inside the cubicle, Lex was paler than usual, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling slowly as he breathed.
In that moment, Clark's heart broke. He walked quietly over to Lex's bedside, counting each breath, not daring to touch his friend. He looked up at the silent heart monitor, watching the jagged, reassuring line as it traced each beat of Lex's heart.
He could almost hear the steady beat of the heart as it traced the line. In fact, he was starting to think he *could* hear it. But that was impossible.
"Lex." He whispered quietly. Before he could say anything else, the heart rate he thought he heard sped up a little. Clark looked up at the monitor and saw the line had sped up as well.
I can hear his heart? From over here? Clark thought disbelievingly.
He tried again. "I don't know if you can hear me, but I just wanted to tell you that I'm here and I'll stay as long as they'll let me, which looks to be about 10:00 tomorrow morning, from the hours posted on the door."
Lex's heart rate sped up again as Clark spoke to him. Well, evidently, he can hear me and I can hear his heart. Weird, Clark thought awedly.
Unable to take Lex's closeness anymore without doing something about it, Clark reached out and brushed his left hand lightly down Lex's right cheek. At his initial touch, Lex's heart rate sped up, then it slowed down markedly as Clark's touch persisted.
He seems to like this. Clark thought amazedly.
The reprieve from the day's tension was shattered by the sound of Lionel Luthor's voice. "I've come to collect my son and take him to Metropolis General."
"I'm sorry, Mr. Luthor, but we cannot release him in his current condition. You'd never get any of the doctors to . . ."
"Oh. I assure you. I already have. The orders for his transfer should be coming through soon. The helicopter to pick him up will be here in less than an hour."
Lex is leaving? Lionel's taking him back to Metropolis? Clark thought despairingly. He briefly searched his mind for some way, any way, to stop that from happening. Before he could make even the barest beginnings of a plan, however, Lionel strode through the door of Lex's cubicle.
Clark heard him come in and pulled his hand away from Lex's face like he'd been burned. It wouldn't do for Lionel to see him caressing Lex's face like that.
"What are *you* doing here?" Lionel demanded. "You're that . . . boy from downstairs."
His back to Lex, Clark could hear Lex's heartbeat accelerate. Or was it his own he was hearing? A glance over his shoulder at the monitor told him that he was still hearing Lex's heartbeats.
Lex's fast, nearly panic-stricken heartbeats. Struck with a sudden fight-or-flight response, Clark drew himself up to defend Lex. "Yes. I am. And you're not taking him anywhere."
Lionel snorted. "It's already done. My helicopter's on the way, and the best doctors at Metropolis General are waiting for us to arrive. Unless you intend to kill me to stop me."
Clark backed down at this. "Of course not."
Just then, two men came in, a gurney between them. "Alexander Luthor?" The front one asked.
"Bed C." The nurse responded.
And Clark could only watch helplessly as his friend was bundled onto the gurney and whisked away.
As Clark left the hospital and began the long walk home, he discovered that, if he tried hard enough, he could still hear Lex's heartbeat, even as the helicopter took him farther and farther from home.
Clark's parents were sitting in the kitchen drinking coffee when he got home. They looked up sharply as he entered the house, prompting him to ask, "What?"
Martha sighed. "Do you know what time it is?"
Clark shrugged, shaking his head. "I left my watch at home." He glanced at the clock. "2:00 a.m.?"
"Yes. It's 2:00. Your mother and I have to be up in *three* *hours.* I suppose you didn't think of *that*."
Clark couldn't help himself. Worry about Lex had taken up the last of his reserves. "I said that I'd left my watch at home. I had no idea what time it is!"
Jonathan bristled at this, but before he could respond in anger, Martha interposed herself between the two men. "Let's go to bed and talk about this in the morning. Later." She corrected herself. "I'm sure we'll all feel better after a few hours of sleep."
Once all of the Kents were ready for bed, Martha came to see Clark in his room.
She perched on the edge of his bed. "I just wanted to ask how Lex is doing."
Clark smiled. "Thanks. He's still . . . in intensive care. But I think they expect him to recover fully."
Martha nodded. "Good. And don't mind your father. I don't think it's really about how late you stayed out. He's been on edge all day."
"He has?"
Martha nodded. "Ever since we came home from the hospital." She stood and kissed Clark on the forehead. "So don't worry. Whatever's bothering your father will pass soon. I'm sure of it."
Once Martha left the room, Clark reached out with his hearing, searching for Lex's heartbeat. It was still slow, and regular, and Clark let the sound lull him to sleep.
***
Friday, Clark wanted a moment to check on Chloe, so made a point of being there for the bus. The bus had already stopped and was pulling away. Clark ran, not at an attention-getting speed, but quickly enough to get there in time for the driver to stop.
Clark climbed on board, nodded his thanks to the driver, and then threw himself into the seat in front of Chloe.
"You made it. I'm impressed." Chloe said.
"Yeah. Well, I wanted to make sure I got the chance to talk to you. How's your dad?"
"He's fine. The doctor down at the plant put one of those big bandages on it and sent him home. He's taking today off, my mom insisted."
"And how are you?"
Chloe smiled at him weakly. "Pretty good. I about lost it when Kwan told me that my dad had been shot, but they let me go right away so I could go home and see for myself that he's fine. Which doesn't explain why *you* disappeared right then."
"I . . . was feeling kind of sick. I went to the bathroom, and . . ."
Chloe turned slightly green. "That's fine, Clark. I don't think I want any details."
Satisfied that he wouldn't have to hear his friends complain that he skipped school to check on Lex, Clark changed the subject. "So, are either of you ready for the Government quiz today?"
Pete and Chloe both turned wide-eyed faces to Clark. "Government quiz?" Chloe said, looking at Pete. Then, wordlessly, both teens searched their bags for their Government textbooks, leaving Clark to his own thoughts for the rest of the ride.
***
Each of the teachers whose classes he'd cut assigned him a detention, which would take care of Friday afternoon, and the afternoons of Monday and Tuesday the next week. All day Friday, he periodically tuned into Lex's heartbeat, to reassure himself that his friend was doing all right.
When he finally returned home from school, he heard his parents talking in the living room.
Ever nosy, he asked, "What's up?"
Jonathan brandished a piece of paper at him. "This. It's a note from the hospital telling me that two pints of the blood that I stored there for my own use was 'accidentally destroyed,'" he sneered these two words.
"But, didn't you . . . ."
"Yes. Figures that Lionel Luthor would find some way to get out of any kind of obligation they have to me for saving their son." He spat.
Clark knew that Lex would certainly thank Jonathan for the blood, if Jonathan would listen to it. But he knew there was no way to convince Jonathan of that, so he just sighed heavily. "I'm sorry about that, Dad. I'm going to go out and get my chores done."
Clark beat a hasty retreat and stayed outside, lingering over his chores as long as he dared. Finally, Martha came after him. "Are you all right, Clark?"
"Yeah." He snapped the wire binding a bale of hay with his bare hands and began carrying tufts of hay into the stalls to feed their three horses.
Martha waited patiently while Clark tried to shut her out. Eventually, her son spoke again. "It's just never going to change, is it? My best friend nearly died yesterday, and all Dad can worry about is that he's not going to get a thank you note from Lionel. And trust me, by the time Lex is home, Lex'll be to blame for it. He'll drag out his book of platitudes and it'll all be 'the apple doesn't fall far from the tree.'"
"Your father's been a little tense since yesterday. It's nothing to do with you, I'm sure." She assured her son hastily.
Clark fixed her with a look that said that he was sure it did have to do with him.
"Are you coming in for dinner?"
Clark sighed. He knew there was no avoiding Jonathan forever. "Sure," he said as he followed Martha into the house.
Jonathan was in a grumpy world of his own through dinner, and afterwards, Clark retreated to the loft to work on his homework, the sound of Lex's heart keeping him company.
Saturday, Sunday, Monday and Tuesday passed in a flurry of chores, school, detention and homework.
On Wednesday, Clark sat in his last period class staring out the window. He hadn't seen Lex for almost a week, and the periodic checks of his heartbeat weren't doing it anymore.
He wondered if he'd dare jog out to Metropolis General after school to see Lex. He didn't know how his parents would take it, much less how he'd explain his sudden appearance in Metropolis to Lex.
He tuned in to Lex's heartbeat, which sounded louder than it had previously. For one brief, heartstopping moment, he thought that Lex was in some kind of distress, but then he realized that it was louder because it was . . . closer. And coming closer still with each passing second.
Clark's own heart rate accelerated as he realized that Lex must be on his way home.
Time seemed to slow to a crawl through the final forty minutes of class, which was doubly frustrating for Clark, whose natural speed was considerably faster than human speed.
Finally the bell rang, and before anyone, even Chloe and Pete, could sidetrack him, Clark was out of the building and off towards Luthor Manor.
Clark heard Lex's heartbeat coming up Route 83 towards Luthor Manor as he skidded to a stop outside the house's gates. As he stood there, a stretch limo came down the road, pulling to a stop outside the gate. One of the back doors opened, and Lex leaned out. "How come I'm not surprised to see you here?" He grinned. "Come on, hop in and we'll give you a ride the rest of the way to the house."
Clark cheerfully complied, pulling the door shut behind him as the gates slowly swung open.
"Shouldn't you still be in the hospital?" Clark asked from his seat directly across from Lex.
Lex shrugged one shoulder, wincing a little as he did so. "There's nothing they can do for me there that Inga can't."
"Inga?"
"My private nurse. She's in the car behind us."
Clark noticed the other car following behind them. "What will you need that you need a nurse for?" Why can't I do everything you need? He finished silently, wondering where this sudden need to protect Lex came from.
Lex laughed. "Nothing, really. I've been up and around several times a day, and I can *almost* get along without my pain pills. That's why I hired Inga, specifically. She's a friend from college. In addition to being an RN, she's also a med school student at Met U."
The limo came to a stop at the front door, and Lex leaned over to open it, noticing the puzzled expression on Clark's face. "My doctor didn't want me to go home without a nurse on hand. Inga will have lots of studying to do, which will take up her time. Plus, she really wants a look at the lab I have in the basement." He grinned shamelessly as he climbed out of the car.
Clark straggled along after him. "You have a lab in your basement?"
"Of course." Lex smiled. "What kind of mad scientist would I be without one?"
Clark stood by while Lex opened the door of the house, and Clark got his first look at Inga. Immediately, he decided that Lex had more reasons for choosing Inga to be his nurse than he had at first let on. She was attractive, and blonde, and had cleavage you could ski down. She could put out an eye with those things. Clark thought uncharitably.
Lex stopped. "Inga, this is Clark Kent. You'll see him around a lot in the next few days."
"Nice to meet you." The tall blonde said in a perfect midwestern twang.
"Where are you from?" Clark blurted out without thinking.
"Milwaukee." She smiled at him. "But my grandparents were all born in Sweden. Moved to Wisconsin, where my dad met my mom, and the rest . . ."
" . . is history." Clark concluded.
"Pretty much." She nodded.
"Are you two coming in, or should I have the staff move some comfortable chairs out here for you?"
"Oops." Inga grinned sheepishly.
"Sorry, Lex." Clark said with a smile as well.
Together, the trio walked into the castle.
Lex walked toward the study, but once she saw where he was going, Inga said, "Oh, no. You are *not* going back to work already. That desk chair will be murder for you. And besides, I need a desk so I can work on my term paper." She lifted the case she carried in her hand.
"So what should I do while you're monopolizing my desk?"
"Catch up with Clark here. I doubt he was able to get in to Metropolis while you were in the hospital." She looked around. "Do you have any *comfortable* furniture in this mausoleum?"
"Through there." Lex pointed towards a room that Clark had never been in before.
Together, they walked to the room and Lex opened the door. Inside was an extensive collection of furniture, most of which seemed to be from the Victorian era.
"You call this comfortable?" Inga asked.
"What?" Lex walked, slowly, over to a horsehair sofa, throwing himself onto it with a vigor that had him nearly bouncing right back off of it. "Look at the springs on this baby."
Clark tried, and failed, not to laugh. "You're always welcome at my house. Gingham curtains and all."
"Laugh it up, farmboy. I'll tell you that this was the height of comfort a hundred or so years ago."
Clark looked around until his eyes lit on an overstuffed paisley armchair. "How about this?"
Lex looked over at Inga, who nodded. "That's more what I was thinking of. Does that thing have an ottoman?"
Clark began pulling the armchair out of the morass of furniture, looking around for an ottoman. "I think that would work." He pointed.
As Clark dragged the chair into the corridor, Inga grabbed the ottoman.
"Now, should we move this into the study, or do you have somewhere else you'd like to sit?" Inga asked him.
"Why don't you tell me?" Lex asked. "What's with you? All of this hovering is making me nervous."
"Well, you hired me to be your nurse. And anyway, consider it payback for finals week junior year."
Lex chuckled. "You won't let me live that down, will you? And anyway, it worked, right?"
Inga snorted. "Yeah. But I only missed being dragged in front of the dean by *this* much."
"Yeah, well . . . ."
"And my odds didn't improve when they found out I'd gotten it from *you.*"
"What can I say? My reputation gets around." Lex grinned.
Inga sighed heavily and rolled her eyes melodramatically.
"And anyway, you had to take it every three hours, or it wouldn't work."
Clark began to panic. He'd known that Lex had done some shady things in his past, but to have given drugs to a friend to help her through finals . . .?
"You know," Lex said, obviously in response to something Inga had said, "You came through that cold so well, Griffin actually asked me for Grandma Cohen's address, to ask her for a batch when she had a bad cold the next semester.
"Yep." He continued. "Grandma told me that she was thrilled that I was so proud of her chicken soup, but I really should have kept it to myself, before she had to supply it to everyone at Princeton."
Clark was amazed, and amused, to hear this exchange. When their conversation died down, he moved the overstuffed chair and ottoman into the study.
"Clark! I have people to do things like that for me." Lex chided him.
Clark shrugged on his way past Lex to the storage room. "I can put it back in the hallway, if you'd like."
"Don't bother." Lex said in a faux-resigned tone. "What are you doing now?"
"Getting a chair for myself." Clark replied as he passed Lex carrying a chair that matched the one he'd brought in for Lex.
Once Clark's chair was set across from Lex's, Clark escorted Lex into the study. He would have helped his friend, but when he reached out a hand to steady him, Lex slapped it back, an indignant look on his face.
Clark and Inga hovered over Lex as he dropped his black overcoat to the floor and slowly lowered himself into the armchair.
"Yes?" He asked them testily.
"Can we get you anything?" Clark asked. "A drink? Something to eat?"
"Just. Sit. Down." Lex said with rapidly-thinning patience. He looked at Inga. "Both of you."
Clark sat in the chair he'd set aside for himself, and Inga walked back out to the foyer, where she picked up her laptop computer and returned to Lex's desk.
"So, what have you been up to?" Lex asked casually, leaning back in his chair and wincing as he propped his feet up on the ottoman.
Clark shrugged. "The usual. School. Chores. Detention." He mumbled that last word.
Lex leaned forward slightly, a strained expression on his face. "What? You've got detention?"
"Had, actually. Friday, Monday and Tuesday."
"Three days' detention? What did you do? Rob a bank?"
"No, I actually. I skipped school on Thursday." Clark *really* didn't want to have to explain to Lex why he'd skipped school, so he emphasized the words 'on Thursday.'
Lex picked up on this and thought. "You skipped school because I was shot?"
"Yeah." Clark responded sheepishly. "I sort of . . . heard some rumors that you'd been injured, and couldn't concentrate on my calc class. So I cut out and went to the hospital."
"I'm . . . not sure what to say." Lex responded. "I'm not sure whether I should thank you for being concerned, or *yell* at you for skipping school." The increasing volume of Lex's voice gave Clark a good guess which one he was leaning towards.
Clark tried desperately to keep his voice level. "Well, it's over now, and I've done my detentions, so there's really nothing you can do about it, can you?"
"I just . . . I just can't believe that you ducked out of school to be there when I was in the hospital."
"Disappointed?"
"No." Lex shook his head hurriedly. "Far from it. I certainly am not deluded enough to think that my father hurried up to get there."
Clark, unwilling to tell the truth, unable to lie about this, looked at the floor at his feet.
"Clark . . ." Lex asked softly. "When did my father show up at the hospital?"
Clark sort of looked up at Lex, only rather than looking directly at him, he glanced up through his eyelashes in a way that always hit Lex right in the stomach, as it was doing now.
"It was . . . late." Clark said.
"How late?"
Lex could see Clark gathering his courage to answer. "Really late. Like . . . after dark."
"But it was still Thursday?"
Clark nodded. "Barely."
Lex laughed. "I *think* that's some kind of record. The last time I was hospitalized, I didn't see the bastard until just before I was checked out."
"Which hospital were you in?"
"Then? Metropolis General."
Clark nodded. "That's why he showed up here. To 'rescue' you from Smallville Memorial."
Lex snorted. "Yeah. That sounds like him."
Clark was silent for a long moment. "Actually, that might not have been a bad idea."
"What?"
"You said that your grandmother's name is Cohen? Is she Jewish?"
Lex nodded. "I am Jewish. Well, on my mother's side."
"What about your dad?"
Lex shrugged. "German, Scottish. A little French on my paternal grandmother's side. Why?"
"You see, when they first . . . typed your blood?" He said this as a question, because he wasn't sure that was the correct term. When Lex nodded, he continued, "they said that you had some kind of rare blood type that Native Americans get."
Lex snorted. "Not likely."
Inga interrupted them. "You're right. It's not likely, but would you mind if I send some of your blood out for testing? We talked about this in my hematology class, and I never expected one of my friends to have even the possibility of having a rare blood type. How did you know about it, Clark?"
"I was waiting in the waiting area and the doctor came out and asked me about it. They didn't have any of that blood type in the Lowell County blood bank."
"So they must have found that they didn't need it after all? Since Lex is fine now."
Clark shook his head. "My dad has some blood stored at the hospital just in case. Turns out he has that blood type."
Inga turned appealing eyes to Lex, who sighed resignedly, extending his right arm, elbow-side down, to her. "All right. Do whatever you have to do."
***
Half an hour late for dinner, Clark ran home. His parents were sitting at the table. "Sorry I'm late," he babbled, "but Lex came home from the hospital. I just . . . went by his house and found him there, and we got to talking, and . . . . What's the matter?"
Too late, he noticed how stiffly his parents were sitting.
"Ask your father. He's certainly not telling me." Martha snapped as she stood and left the table.
Clark watched his father. Jonathan watched him back.
Finally, Jonathan spoke, "When's Lex's birthday?"
Being the last thing Clark expected to hear, it took Clark a minute to formulate an answer. "June. June 15."
Jonathan nodded shortly, "Of . . .?"
"1980."
Jonathan's expression grew even grimmer, if such a thing were possible.
"You all right, Dad?"
"Yeah. I'm fine." Jonathan stood and walked out the back door.
The door closed with a slam, leaving Clark alone in the kitchen. "Well, looks like I'm on my own for dinner," he said to the silence.
***
The next day, Clark avoided the stressful environment of his home at all costs, and headed immediately for Lex's house after school.
He walked in to find Lex in that same overstuffed chair. The only sign that he'd moved in the previous 24 hours was that he was wearing a different suit than he'd been wearing the day before. Inga was nowhere to be seen.
Lex looked over his shoulder with a smile. "Come on in, Clark."
Feeling better than he had since he left the previous day, Clark broke out in a wide grin and walked into the room. He saw a shadow of his own smile on Lex's face.
"You look happy." Lex said.
Clark shrugged. "I guess I'm glad you're home."
Lex's smile grew larger. "Well, I'm glad to be home."
"How're you feeling?" Clark asked as he plopped into the chair he'd placed across from Lex's the day before.
"Fine." Lex shrugged. "Inga still won't let me do any work, though. She says the stress would set my progress back. I think she just wants to keep my desk to herself."
"Hey! I heard that!" Inga said as she came into the room. "And, yes, I do want to keep your desk. It's a very nice desk and once I'm a doctor, I think I'll use my first million to buy it from you."
"So? Any news?"
"It's . . . strange." Inga said, looking at the slip of paper in her hand. "You came back negative for RzRz, but . . . " she held the slip of paper up to the light, squinting at it. "It almost looks like someone erased the vertical line that turns the minus sign into a plus sign."
"You don't think that could have happened, do you?" Lex asked.
"Of course not." Inga insisted. "Although, where you're concerned stranger things have happened."
Lex thought for a moment. "Let me make a few phone calls."
***
Martha Kent looked out the window of her house worriedly. She had heard Jonathan rummaging around in the attic all morning, and then the sound of their truck speeding off into the distance around noon, and hadn't heard anything from her husband since. God, please let him be all right, she prayed.
***
Jonathan threw open the door to Lionel Luthor's office, his secretary protesting feebly that Mr. Luthor was not to be interrupted.
Lionel was yelling at someone over speakerphone while a buxom redhead buffed his nails. "I don't care about the contract! Your company . . . " He looked up and saw Jonathan. "Ah, Mr. . . . Kent, is it?"
"Cut the bullshit, Luthor. I know what you did to my son."
Lionel never took his eyes from Jonathan's. "Can I get back to you, Bill?"
Without waiting for a response, Lionel disconnected from his call. "Now what is it you seem to think I've done to your . . . Mark? Carl?"
"It's Clark, and he's not the son I'm talking about." Jonathan slid a photograph of what appeared to be Lex in overalls onto the desk in front of him.
"So, you got my son to dress up in some kind of costume . . ."
"Not your son. *My* son. This is his great-grandfather, Jeremiah Kent." Jonathan snarled.
"Oh? And how do you intend to prove it, if it is true?"
"I don't need to." Jonathan smiled coldly. "Enough people still in town remember my grandfather. All I'd need to do is make a few suggestions around town. Suggestions that I just *might* have already made. And just in case you get the idea that Plant Number 3 can have a convenient catastrophe that leaves everyone in Smallville dead, I also have a cousin, who's the circulation manager for the Topeka Star. Grandpa and Grandma got married in Topeka. Their wedding picture ran in the Star, and I'm sure they have a few copies of that old issue around somewhere. It would be easy enough for someone to stumble across it and notice the resemblance between Grandpa and Lex."
"So, what do you want?" Lionel's voice was calm, but Jonathan could see that he was rattled.
"Just the truth."
***
Toby slouched into the castle without knocking. "I've got your order here." He held up a ratty-looking paper bag.
"You sure that's the right stuff?" With considerably more difficulty than he let on, Lex stood.
"Of course I am. You think your father'd interfere or something?" He caught the look that flashed across Lex's face. "You do think so, don't you?"
Lex fixed Toby with a flat stare. "Your payment is on the sideboard."
Toby walked over to the sideboard and picked it up. "Let me know how it works out, Sitting Bull." He chortled as he left the house.
After the door slammed shut behind him, the trio stared at the brown paper bag.
"So," Lex said, not taking his eyes off of the bag, "what next? I suppose you'll want some of my blood again?"
Inga nodded. "Just a couple of drops, though. Let's go down to the lab. I'll need a slide for this."
The three looked at the bag again. Then, sighing, Lex picked up the bag and they headed for the basement.
Once in the lab, Inga pulled out a slide and the small paper packet that contained a lancet. Then she opened the bag and took out a small plastic bottle with a peach-colored lid. Lex obediently held out his hand.
Inga quickly unwrapped the lancet and deftly poked Lex's finger.
He winced once at the jab of the lancet and watched as his blood welled up. "Well, here goes." He smiled wanly at Clark as Inga took his hand and put two drops of blood on the slide.
She popped open the seal on the bottle and put two drops of the serum on top of the two drops of blood.
Time slowed to a stop as all three huddled over the slide, watching as the clear, colorless serum gradually began to cloud and the dark red blood changed to a brighter, orange color.
Inga looked up at Lex solemnly. "Congratulations. You're type RzRz."
***
"The truth?" Lionel snarled. "All right. Here it is."
Lionel motioned for Jonathan to take a seat as he stood. Jonathan refused to sit, instead remaining standing.
"You're right. Your poorly-funded lawsuit was justified. Lex was, in fact, the result of your . . . affair with my sister."
He began to pace. "But what would you have done with a son? A poor farmer, barely able to make ends meet. And with a new girlfriend. Would, what's her name? Martha? Have stood by you if she'd known that you'd fathered a baby from a one-night stand?"
"It wasn't a one-night stand." Jonathan snarled.
Lionel laughed once, shortly. "Oh. Well, a long weekend in Aspen, then. Same thing under a different name. After all, once you returned to Metropolis, you lost no time throwing her over for Martha. Poor, poor Alexandra. Pregnant and alone."
"She and I never had any kind of commitment. I was still getting over Nell, and she'd just broken up with that fiancé of hers."
"Of course not. She never wanted you to know that she was pregnant, you know that?"
Jonathan shook his head.
"Yes. She wasn't entirely sure which of the two of you was the father. Not that it mattered in the end."
"What do you . . .?"
"Well, what was poor Alexandra to do? Have the poor, fatherless bastard child, and raise him relying forever on the kindness of relatives to support her? Or give the child to someone who needed him."
"You."
"Yes. Me. And Lily. Lily married me hoping to have a houseful of children. But a case of mumps in college had taken care of that. I've never been able to father children. So I needed Lex."
"But Alexandra died."
"Yes, she did." Lionel sighed. "Poor thing couldn't handle the stress of the pregnancy. She died in childbirth. I named Lex after her."
"And when I . . ."
"And when you claimed that Lex might be yours, and sued for custody, it was a simple matter to fix the paternity test results. Even the one that *your* lawyer ordered. I own Metropolis after all."
"You bastard." Jonathan hissed. "I never thought that even you could steal a child from his father." He headed for the door of the office.
"Jonathan." Lionel's voice stopped him dead. "You will *not* tell Lex the truth. I told you. I need him. If I find out that you have so much as hinted to him that he's your get, I'll ruin your family. Good-bye, Jonathan." Lionel had paced around to his desk again, where he sat down in his chair and turned back to his phone, dismissing Jonathan like he wasn't even there.
Fuming, Jonathan left the office, slamming the door behind him.
***
"But neither of my parents have any Native American blood." Lex said, shaking his head disbelievingly.
"Maybe . . ." Inga stopped that thought before it even began.
Lex understood her and nodded his head. "It would explain why my father hates me, but I can't believe that my mother would cheat on him."
"Maybe you were adopted." Clark offered, thinking that never in a million years that would be the truth.
Clark had never understood why a light bulb was used in comic books to represent an idea. That was before he saw Lex's eyes light up. "My Aunt Alexandra!"
"Who?" Both asked simultaneously.
"My father's sister. It would make sense. I was named after her. I was always told that I was named after her." He laughed shortly. "Of course, I was also told that she died a few days before I was born, but if I'm her son, that can't possibly be true."
"And if you are her son, who's your father?" Clark couldn't help asking.
The three sat around for a moment, staring at the congealing blood mixture on the slide. "Don't suppose it could be a false positive?" Lex asked.
"Not likely." Inga said.
They lapsed into silence again.
Inga broke the silence. "I've got it. When she was a small child, your aunt was abducted by . . ."
"Aliens?" Lex asked, laughing.
"Indians." Inga replied, her voice growing gradually more melodramatic. "She grew up among them, finally falling in love with a brave. Their love was beautiful, but doomed to be short-lived, for when the rest of the tribe found out that she was pregnant, they cast her out, forcing her to return to your father's family. Which is, of course, when she died in childbirth."
"I think you read too many romance novels." Lex laughed.
"And do you know how many stereotypes there are in that scenario?" Clark asked, laughing with Lex.
"Well, it was an idea. I bet the two of you can't come up with a better solution."
An idea had been dancing around in Clark's head ever since they saw the positive reaction, but only now did he have the courage to voice it. "Could my dad be your father?"
***
Deflated and defeated, Jonathan returned home. All he wanted was to take a couple of aspirin and go back to bed.
Martha greeted him at the door. "Where have you been? I've been worried sick."
"Don't make me talk about it." Jonathan moaned as he threw himself into his chair.
"Now I really am worried. Are you all right? Is Clark all right?"
Jonathan laughed a little hysterically. "Oh, yes. I'm fine. Clark's fine. I've just given Clark a brother."
Martha sat down hard in her chair. "You aren't saying that . . ."
Adrenaline shot through Jonathan as he sat up to face her. "Oh, no. Nothing like that. This is something that happened before we even met. About two days before."
"Two days before . . . Twenty-five years ago?"
Jonathan nodded.
Suddenly, everything that had happened since Thursday clicked into place and her eyes widened. "Lex. Lex Luthor is your son."
Jonathan nodded. "I suspected. I even tried to sue for custody, but the paternity test came back saying that I couldn't possibly be his father. Alex and I weren't steady or anything - it was a weekend fling, so I accepted that someone else could be his father. Until last Thursday."
"Last Thursday?"
"When the doctor told me that he has the same rare blood type I do. I just *knew* that Lionel had rigged the blood test all those years ago."
"Which explains why you've been so out of it this week." She crossed her arms and leaned back in her thinking pose. "So what do we do now?"
"Nothing. I can't tell him. Lionel threatened to ruin us if I do. He needs Lex to be his heir."
"That explains why you've always hated Lionel. But if you've known all along that Lionel wasn't his father, why have you always been so mistrustful of Lex?"
"You should know that better than anyone, Martha. I may have . . . created him, but Lionel raised him."
"Yes." A voice interrupted, and the pair looked up, directly at Lex, "but Lily Luthor raised me, too. And my mother was one of the best women I've ever known."
Jonathan and Lex stared at each other for a long moment, the only sound in the room the ticking of the clock in the kitchen.
Finally, Martha made eye contact with Inga and motioned towards the kitchen. The two women withdrew from the line of fire.
"Are you really Lex's biological father?" Clark asked.
Jonathan nodded. "I only just found out the truth myself. Alexandra Luthor, Lionel's sister, was his biological mother. I just got back from Lionel's office. He told me. He also told me that . . ." He was interrupted as Clark burst out the front door of the house.
Lex looked back at Jonathan.
"He told me that he'd ruin us if I told you the truth." Jonathan said pleadingly.
"Don't worry, Mr. Kent." Lex didn't know if he'd ever be able to call Jonathan anything but that. "I'm not without resources. If nothing else, I'm rightful heir to half of my grandfather's holdings. Nothing will happen to you or to Mrs. Kent. And I can promise you that no harm will come to Clark if I can do anything about it."
Then, Lex ran outside to catch up with Clark.
Clark was nowhere to be seen, but Lex gambled that he was up in the loft, and he was right. He climbed the stairs carefully, since it was dark, and he couldn't see where he was going. Only the metaphorical light of Clark ahead of him illuminated his way.
"Clark," he said softly when he reached the top of the stairs.
Clark was seated on the floor, knees pulled up, his forehead resting on them.
Lex walked closer. "Clark." He said a little more loudly.
Clark looked up, his face tear-stained. "I'm happy for you. That you know the truth. I really am, but . . ."
"But?"
"But I'm selfish. I don't want it to be true. I don't want you to be my," his voice caught, "to be my brother."
Lex's face shut down. "Oh. I understand." He headed for the stairs.
Before he knew what had happened, Clark was blocking his way. "No. You don't. At least I hope you don't. This is coming out all wrong," he said frustratedly, "I don't want you to be my brother, because I have . . . other feelings for you."
Hope blossomed in Lex's eyes. "You do?"
Clark nodded. "But I can't because . . ." He looked away.
Lex grabbed his face and turned it back so that their eyes met. "No. We aren't brothers."
"But we have the same father."
"We're not brothers in any way that means anything. Look, two guys can be brothers in that it-would-be-incestuous way three ways. One, biologically. You're adopted. Not a problem. Two, legally. Legally, you're Jonathan Kent's only son. I'm Lionel Luthor's son, legally, and I'm a bit old for him to throw me back." He grinned. "Three, being raised together. I mean, if Mike and Carol Brady never adopted each other's kids, Bobby and Cindy together would be . . . icky. But Marcia and Greg, on the other hand . . . "
"Ewwww." Clark said, as he began to laugh.
"Don't tell me you've never thought about it." Lex said wryly.
Clark realized that there was only one thing standing in the way of him and Lex being together.
"I said that I have feelings for you. Do you . . ."
Lex smiled, taking Clark's face between his hands and running his hands back to tangle his fingers in Clark's hair. "I most certainly do." He responded.
And then he kissed him.