A/N: The characters of Smallville belong to who they belong to. I just love to write about them.
Chapter One:
All his fault. The accusation was embedded in his brain, indelibly so. She was dead because of him and nothing anybody said could change that.
He should've believed her when she'd protested her innocence but old habits were hard to give up. He'd wanted to believe her, wanted to with all of his heart and soul but he'd been burned too many times before to allow himself that luxury. Just this once he should've been more forgiving. She'd died believing he didn't trust her.
The loft was blessedly silent though life went on around him. His father worked the land just like he always did; his mom has left to work another shift at The Talon. She'd asked him whether he'd like to come along. He hadn't been stupid; he'd known why she'd asked. The darkness he'd retreated into was welcoming right now; it tried to protect him from what he was truly feeling. He knew that his mom didn't want him to rely on it too much, to spend too much time locked in his thought processes, to become damaged by them. She remembered, just as he did, the last time he'd let that happen.
He moved from his position on the floor, from leaning up against the beaten up old sofa, staring at nothing in particular and he walked slowly, barefoot, to the desk. It was cluttered as always with papers and textbooks, pencils and pens. It reminded him of the mundane-ness that was life in general. School, mom, dad, the world, it all still happened, everything kept moving. It was just inside of him that everything had stopped still.
He reached down and opened a drawer and there it was, amidst the clutter of paperclips, broken pencils and dust. The necklace that Alicia had made for him, a parting gift she said she'd made for him at Belle Reve. How could he have not seen it for the ruse that it was? She'd asked him to go to California with her, to run away from the pressures of life and he'd refused. He felt that it was better to face up to life, complications. He knew that running away didn't work. Alicia hasn't been strong enough to do that by herself. And with the aid of red kryptonite, she'd gotten what she wanted after all. Well, almost all of it. To describe that wild time in Las Vegas as insane was being polite, it had been intense, it had felt right at the time but then again anything felt under the influence of that rock was intense. And Alicia had known, how, he still wasn't entirely sure but he cursed his stupidity over and over until it had become a mantra inside of his head.
The longer that he looked at the necklace, the more he swore those treacherous little rocks glowed. He reached inside to pick it up. He wanted to wrap his fist around it and squeeze and embrace the release that would surely follow. He paused. It wasn't the answer. He had to be strong. With a growl of frustration, he slammed the drawer shut, hardly aware that the almost antique piece of furniture rocked beneath the onslaught. He turned, pulling his fingers through his hair. He felt claustrophobic, like he was going crazy and he needed some space to try and clear his head.