Title: But for Love
Author: Jade
Email: jade@jadesfic.com
Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine.
Rating: R
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Notes:
1) Written for the CLex Fuh-Q-Fest from this challenge:
In the future, Clark realizes that if he had told Lex how much he loved him/wanted him, the future would not have turned out like Cassandra saw it. He finds a way to go back in time. (Scarlet)
2) Thanks to Walter Watcher and Teaphile for the beta. You guys were great. Thanks to Adam for reading my physics discussion and then telling me that he had no clue what I was talking about.
3) I've edited this to make it into an R-rated version; at least I think I have. :) I'm not American and sometimes I have trouble understanding what falls into each rating category. If someone finds content that they don't believe it appropriate, please let me know and I'll take it under advisement. If you want to read the full version of the story, it can be found on my website at .
Other stories from the fest can be found here:
***_***
*2025*
The first person to get sick was a young man from Metropolis. He came back from visiting the library feeling ill. He told his roommates that he was going to bed early and asked one of them to check on him in a couple of hours. He'd fallen asleep and never woken up. The young woman who had come in to make sure he was okay found him shivering and feverish. His skin felt like fire and he had a strange rash over the majority of his body. He was rushed to the hospital, but he died two days later. By that time, his roommates were sick, as well as the doctors who had tried to treat him, and another five people who had also been at the library.
There was no immediate connection between the illness and Lex, and Clark didn't even suspect it until two weeks into the epidemic when a LexCorp employee blew the whistle on some of the things that had been going on in secret for the last five years. Clark had suspected the experiments with the meteor rocks, but he had never been able to prove anything. Years before, Lex had lined the walls of LexCorp's most important buildings with the green mineral the AI called Kryptonite and Clark hadn't been able to get anywhere near them since.
The man described some of the experiments on viruses that he had been involved in. The employees had been told that they were developing a vaccine for a rare disease, but none of them had ever been allowed to work on enough of the process to put the pieces together and realize how much more was going on. The epidemic had made people afraid, and in their fear they had broken confidentiality agreements, talked between themselves, and figured it out. LexCorp had engineered the illness and then planted it in a public place to be spread. Clark couldn't even begin to understand why Lex would have done it.
Clark tried to get to Lex right away, but he couldn't. The billionaire had locked himself up tight in one of his meteor-rock laced buildings and there was simply no way that Clark could touch him. So he waited and helped with the search for a cure and a way to treat the victims. But a cure wasn't forthcoming and the illness spread like nothing else ever had. Within two weeks there were cases of infection in all major cities in North America. Travel was restricted and all kinds of precautions put in place, but it only took a further two weeks for it to begin spreading to Europe and Asia.
As the doctors began to die after treating their patients, hope of finding a cure fast enough to save the majority of the population dwindled. The researchers from LexCorp weren't able to help, either. Even with all of their pooled knowledge, there was still something missing from the solution, something that Lex had held back just for himself. Clark began to fear that it really was the beginning of the end of the world.
The third week into the epidemic, Clark took his parents and Lois, who were all still thankfully uninfected, to the Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica. When his spaceship had built the retreat during his first year at college, Clark had never suspected that he would be using it like this, as a place to hide his family away from the rest of the world while it was slowly destroyed by the machinations of Lex Luthor.
Clark desperately tried to find some way to help. In the end, all he could do was try and keep the peace as the world died around him. He returned to the Fortress for brief periods as breaks from the turmoil on the streets, but he didn't do it often. Returning meant going through a lengthy decontamination process to remove the virus from his body so that it wouldn't be spread to his parents and Lois. The AI was efficient and its work couldn't be faulted, but the possibility always remained that there was a stray virus hiding on Clark somewhere. Even one would be enough to spread the disease and kill the only people he loved. Seeing them wasn't worth that risk.
In the end, nothing was infallible, and the decontamination process turned out to be the same way. They had lived longer than anyone else, longer than he had hoped for at various times during their isolation. The rest of the species had been dead for almost two months. The four of them, and quite possibly Lex, were the last sentient beings alive on the planet. It had been hard and there were days when Clark wondered why he had ever tried to save his family in the first place. What had he saved them for? The world was gone, contaminated, uninhabitable. It wasn't as if they could ever go back. What was there for them at the Fortress? He tried not to think about it too much and went out whenever he dared to bring them back things to pass the time; books, old movies, and other objects to make it seem more like home.
It was on one of those trips outside the Fortress that Clark picked up the virus. He breathed it in and it sat unnoticed in his lungs as the AI decontaminated the rest of his body. Once inside the Fortress, he breathed it out and that was the beginning of the end for all of them. Lois got sick first, her chills and fever early the next day alerting Clark to the possibility that he had brought it back with him. She slipped into a coma and his parents fell sick almost immediately after that.
He brought all of them back to Smallville to be buried. The local cemetery had been a mess after the chaos and death of the last year, so he had taken them out to a small stand of trees at the back of his parents' property. A stream ran through the area creating a gentle burbling sound. If Clark closed his eyes, he could almost believe that he was a child again and that none of the events of the past year had happened. His parents were still waiting for him at home. His mother was cooking something in the kitchen and his father was tending the fields. Clark smiled at the memory. It was the perfect place for the three of them.
***_***
*July 12, 2026*
Clark pulled the folded, cream-colored paper out of his pant's pocket. The paper was crisp and elegant, as was the handwriting on it once he unfolded it. The note was the reason that he knew that he wasn't the only person left alive on Earth. He had found it five months before, left where he was sure to be the one to retrieve it, and written in Lex's distinctive script. The message on it was only two lines long but told Clark everything that he needed to know. 'When you are finished with your other responsibilities, come and find me. We'll fulfill our destiny together.'
Clark found himself in the barn at his parents' farm almost before he had finished thinking the thought that would send him there. Lex was standing exactly where Clark knew that he would be, in the window of the hayloft, looking out at the slowly setting sun on the horizon.
"So, it's over?" Lex asked quietly from where he was standing. Clark wasn't sure how Lex knew that he had arrived. He was sure he hadn't made any sound in the few seconds that he had actually been in the building. Yet, Lex knew and that was enough for Clark. Some things would just remain a mystery.
Clark didn't respond to the questions. He climbed the stairs to the hayloft and moved to stand on the other side of the window from where Lex was. Their positions mirrored the ones they'd had so long ago when they had stood at this same window and discussed their destiny in the dying light of day.
"Why?" Clark asked harshly. The words felt like they were scraping his throat raw.
"I waited long enough," Lex told him cryptically. "It needed to end."
"Why everyone else? Why not just yourself?"
"That was never my destiny, Clark," Lex said and finally turned away from the sunset to face Clark. "It was never your destiny, either."
"We were supposed to be great together," Clark protested.
It had been years since they'd even been friends. Clark remembered the last day vividly. It was late in the summer after Clark had graduated from high school. Lex had come over in the middle of the afternoon to tell him that he was leaving for Metropolis the next day and that he wouldn't be back. There hadn't been any more warning than that. By the end of the month, Lex had been in control of his father's company and Lionel had all but disappeared.
"We are great together, Clark. We're the last two people alive on the planet," Lex said and a slow smile spread across his face. "Not that you're really a person, are you Clark?"
Clark shrugged. There was no need to protest it now. It was just them. There was no one else to keep the secret from anymore. "How long have you known?"
"Almost from the first," Lex said blandly. "You really should have invested in a better disguise if you wanted to fool people."
"It worked for everyone else."
Lex didn't say anything, but Clark still heard his answer. What worked for everyone else had never worked for Lex Luthor and Clark should have realized that a long time ago.
"You never said anything."
"That wasn't our destiny, either."
Clark was silent for several minutes. He didn't understand Lex. He was angry and numb. They both knew that Lex wasn't going anywhere. This was going to be the end of the line for both of them. There was no need to hurry the moment now that they were both there.
"What will you do when you're alone, Clark?"
"I don't know. Maybe I'll go see what's out there," Clark said slowly and looked up towards the sky. Lex's eyes followed his, tracking their gaze.
He nodded. "That would suit you. You were always meant for that, anyhow."
"Maybe," Clark agreed.
"It's time, isn't it?" Lex asked eventually. The sun was almost gone now; it was just a thin sliver of gold in the distance.
"Yes." Clark stepped forward and placed one of his hands on Lex's shoulder. The other wrapped around the back of his neck.
"I always knew it would be you."
"I know."
"I'm not sorry."
"I know that, too," Clark told his former friend, who was now the only enemy he had left.
Clark moved the hand from Lex's shoulder to his neck and started the movement that would end it all. "I always loved you," Lex whispered as Clark snapped his neck.
Clark could feel the tears at his eyes almost instantly. He laid Lex's still body down on the dirty floor of the barn. He looked out at the dark sky, the sun now completely gone, and howled in agony.
***_***
*July 13, 2026*
Clark buried Lex on the other side of the stream from his parents and Lois. It was perhaps more than the other man had deserved, but Clark liked the symbolism that it presented. The two parts of his life, together, and yet separated. Never able to meet in the middle.
Clark had cried as he buried Lex, harder than he had cried when his parents and Lois had passed, perhaps harder than he ever had before. Lex's confession at the end had torn through Clark, ripping open old wounds that he had thought were long since healed over. He had loved Lex since the first moment he had set eyes on the other man. It had been love at first sight, if such a sentimental term could ever be applied to the serious relationship that he and Lex had shared over the years. They had been friends, best friends, then acquaintances, and finally bitter enemies. It had been rocky and tumultuous, but always the most important relationship in Clark's life. They had been each other's destinies. If only they had figured out how much they loved each other before that love turned cold and bitter.
"I'm so sorry," Clark whispered and placed his hand on the cold dirt that now covered Lex's body. If only there was a way for him to go back and change the way things had worked out.
***_***
*September 18, 2004*
Clark sighed and sat down hard on the couch in the loft of the barn. It was Saturday night and he was stuck at his house studying instead of being out with his friends partying or whatever else it was that eighteen year olds were supposed to be doing on Saturday nights.
He was grounded. It had been three weeks in total, one more and the two that he had already served. It was all Lex's fault. Clark smiled at that thought and remembered the party that Lex had taken him to the weekend before school had started again. It hadn't been a high school party, it had been a real party with people that Lex knew from Metropolis, people that Lex had wanted to introduce Clark to. They had all treated him like an adult and Clark had loved the attention.
He had come home two hours past his curfew smelling like alcohol and cigarettes. His father had been waiting for him in the barn and they had fought. Yes, Clark had admitted, he had been drinking, but he had not been smoking. He still didn't completely understand his father's objection to the drinking. It wasn't like alcohol had the same effect on him as it did on regular people, but he guessed that it was the principle of the thing. He was underage. He shouldn't have been drinking. The fact that his father also knew that it was Lex who had dropped Clark off only moments before hadn't helped Clark's case either. So, Clark had ended up grounded and miserable.
Clark heard a noise in the barn and used his x-ray vision to see down through the floorboards to the ground level. There was someone down there, kind of lurking in the shadows. The person were tall, and likely male.
"Lex?" Clark called. He tried to imagine who else it could be. His father wouldn't lurk and Pete would be shorter. "Lex, if that's you, you know I can't go anywhere tonight. My dad's still pissed about the party."
There was another noise that was movement and the figure was coming up the stairs. There was something familiar about the way they moved and Clark tried to figure out who it could be. He slipped back into normal vision and saw... himself.
"Clark?" the other him asked and then laughed nervously. He must have noticed how strange it was to call his name in relation to someone else.
"Clark," the other said again. "I can barely believe it's you... me... It's been so long since I've seen someone."
"Umm," Clark muttered. He felt so confused. This other Clark was him, but not. He was definitely older. He was slightly taller, he had lost the softness of youth that Clark was so used to seeing on his own face, and he looked tired. So very tired.
"Wow," the older Clark exclaimed and then cleared his throat. He seemed to have remembered that he was there for a reason. "Okay, I don't know how much time I'll have once I start telling you this, so I'm just going to say it and then you can ask questions if I'm still here."
"You're from the future?" Clark asked.
"Yes," the other confirmed with a nod, "many years. Now listen. It's bad. The future, I mean. It's really bad. And most of that is Lex's fault."
Clark started to protest that it simply wasn't possible, but the other held up his hand and made a sad noise.
"I know you don't want to believe it, but it's true. It is Lex's fault and... and ours too in a way. But you can stop it. You need to tell Lex how you feel about him."
"What?" Clark demanded. He slid backwards across the couch, away from his older twin. "I can't tell him that."
"You have to," the other insisted. "It's the only way to avoid Cassandra's prediction. Everyone will die, Clark. Everyone."
"I...."
"He loves you too, you know?" the other Clark said.
"He does?"
"Yes. Look, I don't think I have much time," he said. The older Clark held up his hand and Clark saw that he could see right through it. All of the other man's body was becoming translucent. "I'm going. That means we've changed the future. There's hope. Just promise me that you'll tell him."
"I...," Clark stammered again. He looked down at his hands for a moment. When he looked back up the other was almost gone. "I'll do it."
"Thank you," he said and managed a smile before fading away.
Clark continued to stare at the spot where his future self had stood. Had it been real? Had he only imagined it? What if it was true and the fate of the world really did rest on his ability to confess his attraction to Lex? Could he afford to take the chance that he had been wrong?
Author: Jade
Email: jade@jadesfic.com
Disclaimer: The boys aren't mine.
Rating: R
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Notes:
1) Written for the CLex Fuh-Q-Fest from this challenge:
In the future, Clark realizes that if he had told Lex how much he loved him/wanted him, the future would not have turned out like Cassandra saw it. He finds a way to go back in time. (Scarlet)
2) Thanks to Walter Watcher and Teaphile for the beta. You guys were great. Thanks to Adam for reading my physics discussion and then telling me that he had no clue what I was talking about.
3) I've edited this to make it into an R-rated version; at least I think I have. :) I'm not American and sometimes I have trouble understanding what falls into each rating category. If someone finds content that they don't believe it appropriate, please let me know and I'll take it under advisement. If you want to read the full version of the story, it can be found on my website at .
Other stories from the fest can be found here:
***_***
*2025*
The first person to get sick was a young man from Metropolis. He came back from visiting the library feeling ill. He told his roommates that he was going to bed early and asked one of them to check on him in a couple of hours. He'd fallen asleep and never woken up. The young woman who had come in to make sure he was okay found him shivering and feverish. His skin felt like fire and he had a strange rash over the majority of his body. He was rushed to the hospital, but he died two days later. By that time, his roommates were sick, as well as the doctors who had tried to treat him, and another five people who had also been at the library.
There was no immediate connection between the illness and Lex, and Clark didn't even suspect it until two weeks into the epidemic when a LexCorp employee blew the whistle on some of the things that had been going on in secret for the last five years. Clark had suspected the experiments with the meteor rocks, but he had never been able to prove anything. Years before, Lex had lined the walls of LexCorp's most important buildings with the green mineral the AI called Kryptonite and Clark hadn't been able to get anywhere near them since.
The man described some of the experiments on viruses that he had been involved in. The employees had been told that they were developing a vaccine for a rare disease, but none of them had ever been allowed to work on enough of the process to put the pieces together and realize how much more was going on. The epidemic had made people afraid, and in their fear they had broken confidentiality agreements, talked between themselves, and figured it out. LexCorp had engineered the illness and then planted it in a public place to be spread. Clark couldn't even begin to understand why Lex would have done it.
Clark tried to get to Lex right away, but he couldn't. The billionaire had locked himself up tight in one of his meteor-rock laced buildings and there was simply no way that Clark could touch him. So he waited and helped with the search for a cure and a way to treat the victims. But a cure wasn't forthcoming and the illness spread like nothing else ever had. Within two weeks there were cases of infection in all major cities in North America. Travel was restricted and all kinds of precautions put in place, but it only took a further two weeks for it to begin spreading to Europe and Asia.
As the doctors began to die after treating their patients, hope of finding a cure fast enough to save the majority of the population dwindled. The researchers from LexCorp weren't able to help, either. Even with all of their pooled knowledge, there was still something missing from the solution, something that Lex had held back just for himself. Clark began to fear that it really was the beginning of the end of the world.
The third week into the epidemic, Clark took his parents and Lois, who were all still thankfully uninfected, to the Fortress of Solitude in Antarctica. When his spaceship had built the retreat during his first year at college, Clark had never suspected that he would be using it like this, as a place to hide his family away from the rest of the world while it was slowly destroyed by the machinations of Lex Luthor.
Clark desperately tried to find some way to help. In the end, all he could do was try and keep the peace as the world died around him. He returned to the Fortress for brief periods as breaks from the turmoil on the streets, but he didn't do it often. Returning meant going through a lengthy decontamination process to remove the virus from his body so that it wouldn't be spread to his parents and Lois. The AI was efficient and its work couldn't be faulted, but the possibility always remained that there was a stray virus hiding on Clark somewhere. Even one would be enough to spread the disease and kill the only people he loved. Seeing them wasn't worth that risk.
In the end, nothing was infallible, and the decontamination process turned out to be the same way. They had lived longer than anyone else, longer than he had hoped for at various times during their isolation. The rest of the species had been dead for almost two months. The four of them, and quite possibly Lex, were the last sentient beings alive on the planet. It had been hard and there were days when Clark wondered why he had ever tried to save his family in the first place. What had he saved them for? The world was gone, contaminated, uninhabitable. It wasn't as if they could ever go back. What was there for them at the Fortress? He tried not to think about it too much and went out whenever he dared to bring them back things to pass the time; books, old movies, and other objects to make it seem more like home.
It was on one of those trips outside the Fortress that Clark picked up the virus. He breathed it in and it sat unnoticed in his lungs as the AI decontaminated the rest of his body. Once inside the Fortress, he breathed it out and that was the beginning of the end for all of them. Lois got sick first, her chills and fever early the next day alerting Clark to the possibility that he had brought it back with him. She slipped into a coma and his parents fell sick almost immediately after that.
He brought all of them back to Smallville to be buried. The local cemetery had been a mess after the chaos and death of the last year, so he had taken them out to a small stand of trees at the back of his parents' property. A stream ran through the area creating a gentle burbling sound. If Clark closed his eyes, he could almost believe that he was a child again and that none of the events of the past year had happened. His parents were still waiting for him at home. His mother was cooking something in the kitchen and his father was tending the fields. Clark smiled at the memory. It was the perfect place for the three of them.
***_***
*July 12, 2026*
Clark pulled the folded, cream-colored paper out of his pant's pocket. The paper was crisp and elegant, as was the handwriting on it once he unfolded it. The note was the reason that he knew that he wasn't the only person left alive on Earth. He had found it five months before, left where he was sure to be the one to retrieve it, and written in Lex's distinctive script. The message on it was only two lines long but told Clark everything that he needed to know. 'When you are finished with your other responsibilities, come and find me. We'll fulfill our destiny together.'
Clark found himself in the barn at his parents' farm almost before he had finished thinking the thought that would send him there. Lex was standing exactly where Clark knew that he would be, in the window of the hayloft, looking out at the slowly setting sun on the horizon.
"So, it's over?" Lex asked quietly from where he was standing. Clark wasn't sure how Lex knew that he had arrived. He was sure he hadn't made any sound in the few seconds that he had actually been in the building. Yet, Lex knew and that was enough for Clark. Some things would just remain a mystery.
Clark didn't respond to the questions. He climbed the stairs to the hayloft and moved to stand on the other side of the window from where Lex was. Their positions mirrored the ones they'd had so long ago when they had stood at this same window and discussed their destiny in the dying light of day.
"Why?" Clark asked harshly. The words felt like they were scraping his throat raw.
"I waited long enough," Lex told him cryptically. "It needed to end."
"Why everyone else? Why not just yourself?"
"That was never my destiny, Clark," Lex said and finally turned away from the sunset to face Clark. "It was never your destiny, either."
"We were supposed to be great together," Clark protested.
It had been years since they'd even been friends. Clark remembered the last day vividly. It was late in the summer after Clark had graduated from high school. Lex had come over in the middle of the afternoon to tell him that he was leaving for Metropolis the next day and that he wouldn't be back. There hadn't been any more warning than that. By the end of the month, Lex had been in control of his father's company and Lionel had all but disappeared.
"We are great together, Clark. We're the last two people alive on the planet," Lex said and a slow smile spread across his face. "Not that you're really a person, are you Clark?"
Clark shrugged. There was no need to protest it now. It was just them. There was no one else to keep the secret from anymore. "How long have you known?"
"Almost from the first," Lex said blandly. "You really should have invested in a better disguise if you wanted to fool people."
"It worked for everyone else."
Lex didn't say anything, but Clark still heard his answer. What worked for everyone else had never worked for Lex Luthor and Clark should have realized that a long time ago.
"You never said anything."
"That wasn't our destiny, either."
Clark was silent for several minutes. He didn't understand Lex. He was angry and numb. They both knew that Lex wasn't going anywhere. This was going to be the end of the line for both of them. There was no need to hurry the moment now that they were both there.
"What will you do when you're alone, Clark?"
"I don't know. Maybe I'll go see what's out there," Clark said slowly and looked up towards the sky. Lex's eyes followed his, tracking their gaze.
He nodded. "That would suit you. You were always meant for that, anyhow."
"Maybe," Clark agreed.
"It's time, isn't it?" Lex asked eventually. The sun was almost gone now; it was just a thin sliver of gold in the distance.
"Yes." Clark stepped forward and placed one of his hands on Lex's shoulder. The other wrapped around the back of his neck.
"I always knew it would be you."
"I know."
"I'm not sorry."
"I know that, too," Clark told his former friend, who was now the only enemy he had left.
Clark moved the hand from Lex's shoulder to his neck and started the movement that would end it all. "I always loved you," Lex whispered as Clark snapped his neck.
Clark could feel the tears at his eyes almost instantly. He laid Lex's still body down on the dirty floor of the barn. He looked out at the dark sky, the sun now completely gone, and howled in agony.
***_***
*July 13, 2026*
Clark buried Lex on the other side of the stream from his parents and Lois. It was perhaps more than the other man had deserved, but Clark liked the symbolism that it presented. The two parts of his life, together, and yet separated. Never able to meet in the middle.
Clark had cried as he buried Lex, harder than he had cried when his parents and Lois had passed, perhaps harder than he ever had before. Lex's confession at the end had torn through Clark, ripping open old wounds that he had thought were long since healed over. He had loved Lex since the first moment he had set eyes on the other man. It had been love at first sight, if such a sentimental term could ever be applied to the serious relationship that he and Lex had shared over the years. They had been friends, best friends, then acquaintances, and finally bitter enemies. It had been rocky and tumultuous, but always the most important relationship in Clark's life. They had been each other's destinies. If only they had figured out how much they loved each other before that love turned cold and bitter.
"I'm so sorry," Clark whispered and placed his hand on the cold dirt that now covered Lex's body. If only there was a way for him to go back and change the way things had worked out.
***_***
*September 18, 2004*
Clark sighed and sat down hard on the couch in the loft of the barn. It was Saturday night and he was stuck at his house studying instead of being out with his friends partying or whatever else it was that eighteen year olds were supposed to be doing on Saturday nights.
He was grounded. It had been three weeks in total, one more and the two that he had already served. It was all Lex's fault. Clark smiled at that thought and remembered the party that Lex had taken him to the weekend before school had started again. It hadn't been a high school party, it had been a real party with people that Lex knew from Metropolis, people that Lex had wanted to introduce Clark to. They had all treated him like an adult and Clark had loved the attention.
He had come home two hours past his curfew smelling like alcohol and cigarettes. His father had been waiting for him in the barn and they had fought. Yes, Clark had admitted, he had been drinking, but he had not been smoking. He still didn't completely understand his father's objection to the drinking. It wasn't like alcohol had the same effect on him as it did on regular people, but he guessed that it was the principle of the thing. He was underage. He shouldn't have been drinking. The fact that his father also knew that it was Lex who had dropped Clark off only moments before hadn't helped Clark's case either. So, Clark had ended up grounded and miserable.
Clark heard a noise in the barn and used his x-ray vision to see down through the floorboards to the ground level. There was someone down there, kind of lurking in the shadows. The person were tall, and likely male.
"Lex?" Clark called. He tried to imagine who else it could be. His father wouldn't lurk and Pete would be shorter. "Lex, if that's you, you know I can't go anywhere tonight. My dad's still pissed about the party."
There was another noise that was movement and the figure was coming up the stairs. There was something familiar about the way they moved and Clark tried to figure out who it could be. He slipped back into normal vision and saw... himself.
"Clark?" the other him asked and then laughed nervously. He must have noticed how strange it was to call his name in relation to someone else.
"Clark," the other said again. "I can barely believe it's you... me... It's been so long since I've seen someone."
"Umm," Clark muttered. He felt so confused. This other Clark was him, but not. He was definitely older. He was slightly taller, he had lost the softness of youth that Clark was so used to seeing on his own face, and he looked tired. So very tired.
"Wow," the older Clark exclaimed and then cleared his throat. He seemed to have remembered that he was there for a reason. "Okay, I don't know how much time I'll have once I start telling you this, so I'm just going to say it and then you can ask questions if I'm still here."
"You're from the future?" Clark asked.
"Yes," the other confirmed with a nod, "many years. Now listen. It's bad. The future, I mean. It's really bad. And most of that is Lex's fault."
Clark started to protest that it simply wasn't possible, but the other held up his hand and made a sad noise.
"I know you don't want to believe it, but it's true. It is Lex's fault and... and ours too in a way. But you can stop it. You need to tell Lex how you feel about him."
"What?" Clark demanded. He slid backwards across the couch, away from his older twin. "I can't tell him that."
"You have to," the other insisted. "It's the only way to avoid Cassandra's prediction. Everyone will die, Clark. Everyone."
"I...."
"He loves you too, you know?" the other Clark said.
"He does?"
"Yes. Look, I don't think I have much time," he said. The older Clark held up his hand and Clark saw that he could see right through it. All of the other man's body was becoming translucent. "I'm going. That means we've changed the future. There's hope. Just promise me that you'll tell him."
"I...," Clark stammered again. He looked down at his hands for a moment. When he looked back up the other was almost gone. "I'll do it."
"Thank you," he said and managed a smile before fading away.
Clark continued to stare at the spot where his future self had stood. Had it been real? Had he only imagined it? What if it was true and the fate of the world really did rest on his ability to confess his attraction to Lex? Could he afford to take the chance that he had been wrong?