Regrets Collect
Rating: PG-13/T
Genre: Drama/Angst/Hurt/Comfort
Summary: Fill for both the hc_bingo challenge, prompt "Loss of Identity" and the angst_bingo challenge, prompt "Betrayal". Tess honestly doesn't know who she is anymore. Post-10.08 "Abandoned".
Author's Note: DOUBLE-FILL! I FEEL PROUD! :D
Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville. It belongs to Jerry Siegal, Joe Shuster and the CW. The title comes from the song "Shake it Off", by Florence + The Machine.
()()
"Happy birthday, Lutessa."
It was difficult to reconcile that name with her own, even with the similarities. Lutessa was a Luthor, a name on a birth certificate. Lutessa was a bastard child abandoned by her father. Lutessa cried and begged for him to come back. Lutessa tried to escape the orphanage and failed. Lutessa disappeared twenty-seven years ago when Granny Goodness wiped her memories and made her into Tess.
Lutessa was a dead little girl.
She was Tess. Tess Mercer. She was adopted by Harry and Emma Mercer when she was five years-old. Tess had been beaten and broken by them. Tess had gotten a scholarship to Harvard when she was fifteen and graduated at seventeen. Tess became an adult and learned how to hit people back. Tess got strong.
Tess was a woman.
My name's Lutessa. Tess thought. My real name is Lutessa. But not anymore? Her name had been changed legally when the adoption went through, else her official name would have appeared somewhere else. She would know by now. But Lutessa was the name she'd been given at birth, the name she would have had if she had grown up with Lionel, with Lex-
I am a Luthor.
It was a far more staggering realization than that her given name was not her own. The Luthor family had more scandal and sordid details to it than just about any other. The Luthors were a poisonous and deadly species, infecting and choking to death everything good they came into contact with. The Luthors were bad. The Luthors were monsters. You could not escape the Luthors.
And she was one of them.
Tess had tried, God had she tried, to redeem herself. She wanted to be better. She wanted to be good. She wanted Clark and Oliver and Lois and Chloe not to hate her, because she had never wanted to be the villain of the story. She wanted to be one of the heroes. But how could she be that when she had the blood of a villain running through her veins?
I am a Luthor. And if Clark or Oliver finds out, they'll hate me even more than they do now. Clark didn't hate her at the moment, she thought, but he would when he found out about this. After what Lex had done to him, he would have no more friendly interactions with anyone of the Luthor name. And she was a Luthor.
But I'm not, I'm not! I'm not a Luthor. I'm nothing like Lex, or Lionel. But she was. Hadn't she almost helped Zod destroy the planet? Hadn't she ruthlessly killed to ensure her plans would come to fruition? How was she not every bit as messed-up in the head as Lex? How could she not be, with the way he had groomed her to follow in his footsteps? He had succeeded.
And then, without warning, an old, scarred-over wound was violently ripped open: Lex, you bastard. You knew. You knew. Why else would you have been so interested in me, in my "potential"? You knew who I was, that I was related to you, and you still fucked me over like some floozy in a one-night stand-
The hurt came back like a slap to the face, and a lump rose in her throat. How could he? How could he have used her, knowing who she was? How could Lex have deceived her, manipulated her knowing that she was family, his flesh and blood? How could he have done it?
The answer was painfully simple: Lex was a Luthor.
That's what Luthors did, and at one time, Tess had considered Lex to be the only exception to the rule. Ruthless, proud, tricky? Oh yes, Lex had been all of those things. But Tess thought she had seen the real Lex, the side that cared and wanted to help. The kind that was good and human. And in the end? Just another smoke-screen, put there deliberately to more deeply entrench her devotion to him.
Traitor. You fucking traitor, always going on about how awful Lionel was and wanting to be different, and what did you do? You did it to me, messed with my head the same way he messed with yours, only you were worse because at least you knew Lionel would never give a damn, you actually gave me hope-
Tess wandered back over to the desk and sat down, dropping the birth certificate on the tabletop and covering her face with her hands.
Alexander (She tried not to think of him as Lex) had been right: There was so much she didn't know about herself. The corruption was always inside her, and she'd never even known.
Who was she, really? A Mercer? A Luthor? Tess or Lutessa? Was she the CEO of LuthorCorp and coordinator at the Watchtower, or was she Lex Luthor's sister and Lionel Luthor's bastard-child? Had she been doomed to go bad from the beginning? Was she always going to be fated to follow the same cold, destructive path? Did she have any choice in how her heritage would affect her life?
Given what happened to Lex, she assumed the answer was "No".
Abruptly, there was a knock at the door. "What?" Tess called sharply. 'Tact' had been crossed out of her vocabulary for the night. The door opened, and her head of security stuck his head into the room.
"Clark Kent's here to see you."
Tess stiffened. Did Clark know something? Could he have figured it out? Were there clues he could have followed? Had he maybe learned something in a well-meaning attempt to help her find her birth parents? She swallowed. "Let him in."
When Clark entered the room, Tess was relieved to see no trace of anger or suspicion on his face (Because surely he would accuse her of knowing all along and deliberately keeping it quiet. That's what Luthors did). "Tess."
"Clark. This is a surprise. I thought I'd gotten you into enough trouble for one day." She affected a bland smile that he could probably see right through, but she didn't care. He knew the events of the day had worn on her, and he would be expecting it. No reason to suspect that she might be hiding something.
Clark gave a small smile in return. "Just wanted to make sure you were all right. Today was pretty… Intense." Tess huffed a laugh.
"That's one way of putting it."
Clark looked left, then right, and she wondered if he could still remember what this room looked like when Lex was still around. "So… Would you like some company?"
Tess cocked an eyebrow at him. "You sure Lois won't have a problem with you spending time with 'Satan-Incarnate'?"
"I've never heard her call you that."
"Her exact wording was a bit more vulgar." Clark chuckled. "I won't exactly be a ball of sunshine, Clark."
"I can understand that. After today, it just… Felt like maybe you might need a friend."
Tess looked at him for a moment, a little too jaded to just take that statement and roll with it, but then nodded slowly. "If you want to subject yourself to an hour of me, that's your choice." Clark smiled again and pulled a chair over, sitting down across from her.
"So, what have you been up to?"
One day, Clark was going to find out who- what- she was. And when he did, he would hate her.
Until then, Tess would enjoy his friendship while she had it.
-End