Disclaimer: I own nothing in this fic. But oh how I wish I owned Tom Welling.
A/N: This takes place between season 9 and season 10. The real reason behind how Lex is able to "clone" Clark. Also, I'm assuming Lex isn't really dead, he just wants people to think he is.
Lex's Madness
"Madness is to think of too many things in succession too fast, or of one thing too exclusively." -Voltaire
I stand on the other side of the thick pane of glass that separates me from the boy. No, boy was the wrong word for Clark Kent. The day that I hit him with my Porsche, he had been a tender boy of 14, anxious to hide his secret from the world. Now, here he was, a grown man of 24. Twelve years had passed since then. He was beautiful, he still is. Shaggy dark hair falls on a wide, golden forehead and green eyes that reflect the streaks of the green stones that had been mixed with the titanium that bind him.
I watch through the one-way mirror as doctors come in and poke and prod at him. He whimpers in pain, and I feel my heart clench. I never wanted things to end up like this. So many things I wish I could change. We had been best friends once, and now, well.
How could you hate someone with a passion and want them dead, but also love them with that same passion? I know I'm going mad. It's what happens when you love and hate in equal measures. I love and hate Clark Kent. I hate the fact that he never told me his secret. Hate that he chose Lois Lane. Hate that he hadn't loved me the way I wanted him to. I hate so much about Clark Kent. And yet…I love him. Love the way he smiled so that only part of his teeth showed. Love the way his eyes sparkled when he told a joke. Love the way he pushed his hair out of his face. Love the way he was vulnerable and strong all at the same time. They say that Juana, Queen of Portugal went insane in the early 1500s because she loved and hated her husband in equal measures. She carried his corpse around all of Spain with her, never wanting to leave his side. Will I be the same?
I press my hand to the glass. I hate watching them work on him, but I have to. He doesn't know for sure that it is I who am doing this to him. He probably suspects that it is me, or maybe not. He thinks I am dead. He doesn't know that I'm not going anywhere without him.
He whimpers, and I watch as a doctor slides a needle between skin and muscle and I close my eyes as he screams in agony. It must be done, because if I cannot have him, then I must have the next best thing.
How long had it been since the day I realized I loved him? At least eight years. Eight long years I have suffered his distrust. It is more than I can stand. I can still remember the exact moment that I knew I wanted him.
Clark had stormed into the mansion, backpack slung over one shoulder, a storm raging on his face.
"Well, well, Clark. I didn't expect to see you so soon after school." I had pushed away from the glass desk and stood, walking over to where Clark had dropped his backpack and had plopped down on the couch, his head in his hands.
"What's going on?" I sat down next to him, who was looking up at me miserably.
"Shakespeare." He said it with such disgust that I had burst out laughing.
"It's not funny, Lex. I hate it. I don't get it-at all." Clark reached into his backpack and pulled out a thin copy of Hamlet. He handed it to me and I paged through it.
"Ah, yes. 'To be, or not to be.'" I nodded as I flipped to a certain part of the book.
"You know this?" Clark looked at me in awe.
"Yes. I had to read it back in the day. It's one of my favorites." I had handed it back to Clark, who looked down at the book in disgust again.
"Ok, well, maybe you can explain this to me. Why does that girl-Ophelia decide to kill herself? I just don't understand." Clark handed the book back to me.
"You can't imagine why someone would want to kill themselves after losing their father and having the only person that you have ever loved telling you that they never loved you?" I had asked the younger boy, who squirmed uncomfortably.
"I guess if you put it like that…but still, she has her brother." Clark had protested.
"Ah, Clark. You'll never understand poetry." I had rolled my eyes and began to point out themes to him. When I had gotten to my absolute favorite part, I pointed it out to him.
"Here. Read this. You be Ophelia, and I'll be Hamlet." I walked over to my bookcase and pulled out my own copy of Hamlet, then returned to the couch.
"What? I'm not being the girl part!" He looked at me incredulously.
"Oh Clark, please. It's just a play. Now. I'll start." I had cleared my throat and began, putting as much feeling as I could into it. "I humbly thank you, well, well, well."
Silence. I had given him the eyebrow raise that clearly said, "Really? You're going to do this?"
He sighed. "My lord, I have remembrances of yours that I have long longed to redeliver. I pray you now receive them."
"Clark! Feeling! Come on man, she's returning stuff that he gave her!" I had punched him on the shoulder and he had given me a look.
"Fine, let's just continue. "No, not I, I never gave you aught." I turned away from him, oozing drama.
"My honor'd lord you know right well you did. And with them words of so sweet breath compos'd as made these things more rich. Their perfume lost, take these again, for to the noble mind rich gifts wax poor when givers prove unkind. There my lord." His voice had gained a little more inflection, but not much.
I sighed. "Well, maybe read this with someone who you actually feel these things with. Lana, perhaps?"
Clark shifted uncomfortably. "The thing is Lex, I don't know if I'll ever really feel this way. I mean, I'm upset that Lana is with Whitney, but I don't think I'll ever want to kill myself over it."
My heart thumped in my chest. Looking at him in that moment, I knew that I would do anything for this boy. We had spent the rest of that day lounging around, playing pool and watching movies before I finally let him look up the Sparknotes version of Hamlet.
I press my nose against the glass, unsure of who I hate more in this moment, myself, or the person who drove me to this madness. He is begging for his mother now, and I wonder how Martha would look at me if she knew I was the cause of her only son's suffering.
"Please, don't do this. Let me go. I promise I won't say anything to anyone about this. Please!" He is begging the doctors who are glancing nervously at the glass behind which I am standing.
It's time he knows who is behind all this.
I take my id card from around my neck and slide it through the reader, which pings and then slides open. He turns feverish eyes towards me, which then widen in shock. I take a few moments to compose myself, then place a smirk on my face and approach the gurney.
"Happy to see me alive, Clark?" I ask, raising my eyebrows.
"Lex!" He struggles against his bonds. "Why are you doing this to me?" Blood is dripping down his arm from where doctors have removed tissue samples and his lips are pale. He is in agony, and it pleases and pains me.
"Because, Clark. Your advanced biochemistry will help heal the diseases of the world. Aren't you the one always running around trying to help people?" I ask, turning away from him.
"Not like this, Lex! If I knew you were actually going to use this for good, then I might have considered, but you'll sell my blood on the black market or something or grow your own clone army." I can feel his stare on the back of my head.
I whip around, truly angry now. "You have no idea what I'll do. You never trusted me."
"Well maybe if you wouldn't have studied me, I would have been able to trust you. How am I supposed to trust you now that you've abducted me? Let me go, Lex. Please." If he is trying to appeal to my sense of guilt, he is failing. I feel no guilt. Only desire and hate.
My upper lip curls. "Why? So you can return to your pretty little fiancé and your pretty little farm house?"
Clark closes his eyes. "Yes." He whispers, and it hits me like nothing has ever hit me before. He loves her, in a way he never loved me.
I close my eyes. "Not now, Clark. We still have more tests to run. Besides, what makes you think I won't keep you?" I smile sardonically again and he struggles even harder.
"Lex! Please!" He is openly weeping now. "If you ever cared for me, please let me go!"
I swallow and get close enough to his face so he can hear every word I have to say to him. I had been dying to say these things to him ever since we had become enemies. I prayed he knew what it was from and the significance of it. "The power of beauty will sooner transform honesty from what it is to a bawd than the force of honesty can translate beauty into his likeness. This was sometime a paradox, but now the time gives it proof." I put my hand to my face and find I am crying, something I haven't done in years. Tears fall onto his upturned face as I recite the last verse. "I did love you once." A sob is ripped from my throat and I turn to leave, but he calls out to me.
"Indeed, my lord, you made me believe so." He says the next line with such feeling, that I have to turn around. His eyes are closed, his face is turned away from me and he is crying too.
I take a deep breath and recite, "You should not have believ'd me, for virtue cannot so inoculate our old stock but we shall relish of it. I lov'd you not."
He turns towards me and his green eyes stare into my blue ones. "I was the more deceiv'd." The words are torn from his throat, and he says them with difficulty, they are all sharp edges. It takes all my courage not to fall at his words. Had I deceived him more than he had deceived me? I didn't think so.
I remembered the next part, and knew that Clark, who was always so trusting in people, so willing to see the good in everyone, identified more with Ophelia than with Hamlet. But the next part of the play had always spoken to me, so I grab his chin, forcing him to look at me. "Why would'st thou be a breeder of sinners? I am myself indifferent honest, but yet I could accuse me of such things that it were better my mother had not borne me: I am very proud, revengeful, ambitious, with more offenses at my beck than I have thoughts to put them in, imagination to give them shape, or time to act them in. What should such fellows as I do crawling between earth and heaven? We are arrant knaves, believe none of us."
I slide my id card through the reader and as I leave the room, I hear a sob tear through him, and my heart breaks a little more. The mechanical door slides closed behind me and I lean against the wall, putting my head in my hands.
Footsteps approach me, and I look up, wiping tears away from my eyes. "Mr. Luthor?"
Dr. Kyle, someone who I have had on retainer for years, approaches me. He is a man who I wished could have been my father. He has salt and pepper hair that is cropped short, and a pleasant demeanor.
"Yes, Dr. Kyle. What can I do for you?" I smile a little and he looks at me in concern.
"We've taken blood and skin samples. What should we do now?" He looks at me anxiously.
"Take him to the secure room I have prepared. We need to get more samples." I start walking back toward the window. I have to look at him. I can't be away from him for too long.
"Sir, I'm not really sure what more we can do…" Dr. Kyle is shifting from foot to foot, clutching a clipboard in front of him.
"I want a full body scan. We need to figure out exactly how his physiology works. We may even need to do a biopsy at some point."
The doctor nods slightly, then turns and stiffly walks out of the door. I know what he thinks of me, but I don't care. The only thing that matters is Clark Kent.