Josephina x asked for a coda to The Friendship Plan 'verse for her birthday. Granted, her birthday was a month ago, and this is more of an interequel than a coda, but better late than never and it's the thought that counts, right? So happy belated birthday Josephina X!

This takes place sometime after Plan M in Plans C Through... and directly after Plan 1 in Josephina X's Family Outings of the Being A Good Family plans (Unabridged Log) (slash)works(slash)493330

Clark was bored.

At first he had really enjoyed reenacting 'The Incredibles.' (And thank God Conner had given him the heads up to watch that movie because he'd never seen it – it was just a little too close to his own life, even back in high school, for him to be entirely comfortable with it – and Clark would have been completely lost otherwise.) It had been really fun 'sneaking' around and acting just a little too suspicious, though it had been harder for him to 'accidentally' tip off Lex than it had for Bob to Helen since Clark and Lex weren't actually married or in any way romantically involved. Destroying the first robot had been pretty fun too, and so had, surprisingly enough, pretending to be defeated by the second robot and even getting captured had been fairly exciting, since he knew he had never really been in any danger.

But now he was being held hostage, and that was extremely boring. Well, okay, it wasn't all bad; seeing Eric Summers again had been neat. Clark had to hand it to Lex, he really had picked out a good person to play the Syndrome role. At least, Clark really hoped Eric's presence meant he was mostly all better and was just play-acting, though Clark wasn't sure he could put it past Lex to lie to Eric about the genuine-ness of this plan to take down Clark and use Eric anger at Clark to make the whole thing more authentic. Also, doing the scene where Eric 'shot down' the airplane Lex and the kids (Clark figured it was probably Conner, because he was their actual son, and Cassie, who Clark and Lex had mutually agreed probably had a bit of a crush on Conner, which in Lex-logic basically made her their daughter-in-law, up in the plane with Lex) had been fun too. But that had happened forever ago, and now Clark was bored.

Really, really bored.

Clark was considering for the umpteenth time how he could, without disturbing the reality of the reenactment, get a message to Lex to hurry it up already, when he heard a pair of heels come down the hallway and stop in front of the door. When it slid open just a few seconds later and Hope, their resident Mirage come to save him, walked in, Clark found it hard to suppress his grin and keep up the dour and defeated prisoner act. And not just because things were finally moving forward either; Clark genuinely liked Hope. In fact, after they finished doing their Incredibles thing, Clark was going to recommend Lex hire her on as a secondary bodyguard-cum-chauffer-cum-personal assistant. She seemed like she would be almost as effective at the job as Mercy was, but had a bit sweeter manner that Clark thought it might be a good idea to expose Lex to. Plus Clark didn't care how capable Mercy was, she had to sleep sometime. Probably.

Because he did like her, it was no hardship to, when his cue came up, to sweep Hope up into a big bear hug. Right on time – though since Lex had planned this whole thing, Clark really expected nothing less – Lex appeared in the open doorway, his eyes flashing with anger. "I had come to help you escape, but it looks like you have things well in hand here," Lex said, his nostrils flaring ever so slightly.

Wait, nostrils flaring? Lex never flared his nostrils when he was faking anger – Clark thought that he thought it was undignified – they only did that when he was actually pissed. But why would Lex be angry right now? As far as Clark could tell, things were going pretty smoothly.

"I'll let the two of you get back to it," Lex said, sneering a little before turning around and walking away again. Clark stood there in confusion for a full six seconds longer before comprehension dawned and a goofy grin spread across his face. Lex was jealous. Lex had seen Clark hugging Hope and he was jealous. It was a little bit stupid, because Clark had only been avoiding that kind of friendly physical contact with Lex to respect Lex's personal space issues, and it was a lot totally awesome because Clark hadn't got to hug Lex the last time he had come back to life, or on any occasion since, and three years was way too long to wait for a hug.

"Lex, wait!" Clark called, jogging to catch up with him. For a second it looked like Lex wasn't going to stop, but then suddenly he turned around, glaring at Clark with all the ferocity of the worst years of their relationship. But if Lex could regress, so could Clark, right back to the fifteen year old who was cheerfully oblivious of the anger and the tension in his friend's body and who just went ahead and did whatever he wanted. Which in this case, was grabbing Lex and giving him the tightest hug he had ever given anybody (except for Conner, but that didn't really count since Conner's Kryptonian heritage meant he could easily take hugs that would crush a normal human being to death).

Lex stayed tense for a moment, before grabbing a hold of Clark, like he was worried someone was going to take this away from him. Clark made a mental note to try to hug Lex more often and to tell Conner to do the same. "Thank you," Clark said. And that was probably what he was supposed to say according to where they were in the movie, but Clark really was grateful. Grateful for this moment, for all the work Lex put into making these reenactments, and most of all, grateful that Lex had kept pushing and made Clark see how much he had missed this. "I'm glad you're still alive," he added, his voice going just a bit thick with the emotion of it.

Lex held on for a beat longer, but that seemed to be the extent of the sentimentality that he could take in one sitting. He pulled away, and Clark, somewhat reluctantly followed suit. "I'm rather glad about that myself," said Lex, a small smile gracing his face.

Clark grinned back, letting the 'Clark and Lex' moment stretch on a second or two longer, before he slipped out of it and back into the 'The Incredibles' one. He made a show of looking around, and, when it was apparent that there was no one in the hallway but the two of them, asked, "Where are the kids? Are they okay?"

"Don't worry, I left them hiding back on the beach," Lex assured him. "Conner's fine and so is – they're both fine. Come on, we need to get out here." Rather abruptly, Lex turned and continued down the hallway at a quick, but maintainable pace.

Clark fell in line behind him automatically, puzzling over Lex's response. It hadn't escaped Clark's notice Lex had deliberately avoided naming the second person he had brought with him. Clark couldn't imagine why though, unless Lex though Clark would be angry about his choice. But if that was the case why would Lex have brought her (Clark assumed it was still a girl) in the first place? Just who the heck was running around out there with Conner? Clark tried to put it out of his mind, since he was going to find out in a few minutes anyway, but it kept niggling away at him. Finally, with a little inward sigh, he gave the whole thing up for a bad job, and decided to find out for himself. Just a quick peek, he reasoned, and then he could get back to focused on their reenactment.

Locking in on Conner's heartbeat was easy enough, and from there it was simply a matter of slipping into super-speed, so Lex wouldn't notice Clark had stopped, and sneaking a look in that direction. His sight zoomed in on Conner's heart, and Clark pulled it out, until he could see Conner standing protectively over-

No. Absolutely not. Clark didn't how carefully Lex had put this whole thing together, or how safe it was, this was not acceptable. Still moving at super speeds, Clark picked Lex up and flew him over to where the children were, setting him down more gently than he probably deserved. Then he took off through the woods, picking up each and every one of the henchmen 'attacking' the two, and a number of others that weren't, but were still too close for Clark's liking. Then, just to be on the safe side, Clark went back inside, decommissioned the rocket, the robot, and handcuffing Eric – he left Hope nearby with the keys, just in case Eric really was sane again – and generally made certain Lex wouldn't have any excuses to put him off. Once he was satisfied that everything was taken care of, Clark made his way back to the other three and, crossing his arms, finally came to a stop.

"… too scary," concluded the little girl, who couldn't have been more than five years old, before burying her face in Lex's neck.

"I'm sorry, sweetheart," Lex said softly. "But you know that no one was going to hurt you, right?" The girl nodded, though she didn't seem to take any particular comfort in the words. "And you know Conner was here to protect you, right?" She nodded again, though this time she released one of her hands from its stranglehold around Lex's neck to reach out blindly behind her. Conner was quick to step in, taking her waving hand in one of his, while the other was brought up to rub along her back, in counterpoint to Lex's in her hair. Her bright tangled mass of curly red hair, very nearly identical to Lex's when he was little.

But that wasn't possible. Lex couldn't possibly have a daughter. After all, Clark was Lex's closest friend, unless you counted Mercy, so he would have known if Lex had a daughter. Lex would have told him first thing if he had found out he had a daughter. Well, first thing after Conner, who as Lex's hypothetical daughter's half-brother, probably deserved to know first. Unless this was Lex's idea of telling Clark first thing? Because come to think of it, that would be so very Lex.

"Lex, who is she?" Clark asked neutrally, the sharp edge of his anger having disappeared the moment he'd seen the open affection Lex had been directing at the little girl in his arms.

For the first time since Clark had arrived, the girl looked up, fixing wide, green, very familiar eyes on Clark.

Oh, God.

"Clark, meet Lara," Lex said, having the grace at least to look faintly embarrassed. "Our daughter."

Next is "Not Quite According to Plan" (Story ID:10553646)