Summary: This is his weakness.
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: Clark/Lex
Disclaimer: If I owned them, this would be original fic and not fanfic, wouldn't it!
Inspiration and Reference: Music - Various tracks from "The Lord of the Rings" score, and the song "May It Be" by Enya.
LexCorp was a sterile office building, decorated with polished lead and frosted glass, entirely devoid of warmth and beauty. The interior was all sharp angles, steel framework and hollow space. Intimidating to anyone encroaching upon Luthor territory. A headquarters that was as empty as it was edgy.
As Clark stood inside Lex's office, he felt the cold of this place touch him for the first time. He had never realized how the mere design of a room could smother a person's hope and confidence, but while waiting for Lex to greet his uninvited guest, the walls crushed him from all sides. The ceiling was closing in on him and the floor seemed as if it would drop out from under him.
But when Lex finally appeared, Clark stood tall, raising his head a little so that it did not hang too low. Lex's eyes were glued to the pages inside a folder he was carrying, and he only tore his eyes from it once he had his back to Clark. After Lex gave no acknowledgment of Clark's presence, Clark cleared his throat, dislodging any sign of weakness from it before he spoke. "I'm sorry to barge in like this..."
"No, you're not." Interrupting Clark with resonant indifference, Lex corrected him, abruptly turning to face the man in the plain suit and tie. Simple yet sophisticated. The clothes of a successful yet modest reporter. "What's this about, Kent?
"Jimmy's dead." Clark kept his voice balanced, wielding control like a papier mache mask.
"Olsen?" Taking slight notice, Lex's disposition rose from sub-zero to zero.
Clark nodded ominously.
"And? Is this what you came to tell me, Kent? The Daily Planet lost a photographer?"
"No. I lost a close friend. He was only 42 years old, and he was much more than a photographer. He was a good man." Clark paused. He gulped and his voice grew heavy. "I couldn't save him, Lex."
"I'm confused. Am I supposed to care?" A glint of gleeful spite traveled across Lex's eyes.
"No. Because why would you?" Clark answered Lex's apathy with his own. "My mistake." Though he intended those to be his final words, instead of leaving, Clark stubbornly remained right where he was, steadfast.
"What did you expect? Do you want me to play hero, Kent? Comfort you, tell you everything is going to be okay? Don't tell me the Man of Steel himself needs a little human companionship." Lex seemed to smell blood in the water. As if he thought Clark was chumming, purposely drawing the predator in him to the surface. "Human." Lex spoke as if to drag his heels across the word. "That's funny. Human is the farthest thing from what you are. And companionship of any kind is impossible for you. You had to separate from your wife because she's almost 50 and you haven't aged a day beyond 25. Your Earth parents are long dead. And now your friend, the meager photographer, is gone." Lex's smirk melted into a scowl. "I don't know whether to cry or rejoice. Welcome to eternity. You're damned to it along with your worst enemy."
The mask of control stretched thin across Clark's face. His lips tightened and his eyes filled with impotent anger.
"Let me give you some advice. If you want to save someone, don't come looking around here. And in a hundred years when everyone you've ever cared about is nothing but a distant memory, don't look for me to save you from that loneliness, because I'm condemned to my own. Even if I weren't, I have absolutely no desire to spend my life as a savior. I'm quite content to leave the hero business to you and Bruce. If you can't bear the burden, that's not my problem. I already helped you down from a cross once. With this one, you're on your own."
"I didn't come to try to save you Lex. And I definitely didn't come to be saved. Because if there's anything I know you're not capable of anymore, it's compassion." Clark took a breath, the fire in his eyes cooling. "There's a storm coming. And I only came to tell you something." Silence. The discomfort sank into his skin like freezing rain. Words went unspoken, and then others came. "I know I'm not human, Lex. I just wanted to remind you that you, however, are. No matter what the meteor shower did to you." He turned away and headed for the door, as he realized he should have done several minutes ago. With his hand on the door handle, Clark turned back one last time. "But don't worry, Lex. No one's going to mistake you for a hero."
The living room was piled high with boxes, narrow pathways left between them. The sea of cardboard swelled toward the hallway, forming a wave toward a distant ruckus. The apartment was barren except for the piles and the mess of papers and clothes surrounding them. Sound echoed in the room as if it were a cave, making the apartment seem even more desolate. This pad was in the middle of the city but it might as well have been the arctic.
The place seemed alien to Lois. She had lived here with Clark for 15 years, and yet she scarcely recognized it. Their home was in the process of being ripped apart, put away, and forgotten. She paused in a moment of melancholy nostalgia, and then started move forward again.
After navigating her way through the simultaneous clutter and organization of moving, she finally cornered Clark in the bedroom. "So what's all this, Smallville?"
"I'm leaving." Clark did not turn to see her. He simply continued to tear things from his closet and toss them into the giant box on the bed.
"I can see that." Her voice was raw with agitation and the roughness of cigarettes. The scent of smoke clung to her navy blue suit, and before Clark could smell it on her, she pulled out the pack and pulled one out to light it.
He broke from his harried clearing of the closet to snatch the cig out of her hand before she could find a match. He tossed it off somewhere without looking or caring where it went.
"Clark, what is it that's gotten into you? Perry told me you handed in your resignation, effective immediately." She watched him, but he didn't even break stride as he crossed the room to grab the tape. "Why didn't you tell me you were quitting? How could you give up being a reporter? You love this job, I know you do. What's going on...?"
The high-pitched sound of tape being ripped from its spool cut her off as he sealed the extra large box and set it on the floor. He closed the closet door and sat down on the bare mattress without uttering a word.
"Clark! Please tell me what this is about, because you're really scaring me!" Her demand to know defied his silence, and her tone pleaded for his explanation.
"Lois..." He began, but immediately trailed off, not knowing how to go from there. When he gazed up at her, his face was full of sorrow and reflection, a look she knew all too well from times when he had nightmares that clung to him when he awoke. "I'm at the end."
"The end of what?" When he stared back at her sadly, her eyes widened in panic. "Clark, don't say things like that. You're really freaking me out now!"
"I'm sorry, Lois. For everything. I'm sorry that I couldn't be the one for you, that I couldn't watch you grow old and die..." Guilt swelled in his eyes as he turned them to the floor.
Her voice fell soft, delicately trying to take the invisible weight off his shoulders. "I'm the one who left, remember?" She sat beside him on the bed, not leaving much space between them. "Clark, there's someone out there for you. Someone you can spend forever with. If there's not, may they take away my Pulitzer." She managed a tiny smile, but it failed to inspire the slightest crack of one on his face. As she watched his somber expression solidify like stone, she had to marvel at his youth and beauty. His face had not changed at all since she had left this same apartment seven years ago. With the exception of his charm being doused by depression. "What about Lex?"
Clark glanced up at her. Traces of shock in his eyes that did not show in his other features. He merely glanced away again and fidgeted with his fingers. "I didn't realize you knew."
"Well, it was pretty easy to figure out, Clark. Plus, hey, investigative reporter, remember? Learned from the best, working for the best, and constantly trying to prove I'm still the best of the best. You never were able to get anything past me. What makes you think your feelings for Lex could have escaped my attention?"
He looked at her with glassy eyes that searched her face. Probably remembering when there were no wrinkles under her eyes, no roughened appearance to her skin, when her eyes were less worn around the edges and her lips were softer and plusher.
"You and I? We loved each other. And we always will, but... we don't make sense. Not in the long-term, anyway. You and Lex..."
Before she could continue, he shook his head adamantly. "No."
"No? How can you be so sure until you talk to him?"
"I've talked to him so many times, and it always comes back to the same thing; Lex hates me!"
"But did you ever talk to him about your feelings...?"
He glared at her, frustration welling up in him to fill his eyes with fire and water. "It doesn't matter!" After hearing his own voice boom through the abysmal space of the bedroom, Clark lowered his voice. "Not anymore."
Concern etched its way across her brow, knitting knots along the way. "Are we back to the part where you're scaring me again?"
Clark's face drained of all emotion. His expression was blank, but a river of turmoil lay behind his eyes. "There's a storm coming, Lois."
She spoke half to herself. "Yeah, sounds like we're right back to scaring Lois again." She let out an exasperated sigh. "What are you talking about, Clark? What storm? What's coming?"
Deadpan expression. "My replacement."
"Replacement?" This caught her attention, derailing her determined train of thought from its tracks.
Clark rose to his feet. "My cousin. Kara Zor-El. She was sent to Earth just like I was, only on a different course than my ship. With the extra number of light-years' deviation, my father arranged it so that she would arrive when I was old enough to be her guide and mentor. She was a little older than I was when our ships left Krypton, and it was better that a young child be the first, the one to bridge the gap between human and Kryptonian. When her ship crashes, it won't be a child coming out of it. She'll be an adult who has to live on Earth without the experience of having grown up here."
Lois was bewildered. But all her questions were haunted by the dread of being answered.
"Only I won't be here to help her make a smooth transition. So I want you to do it. When she comes here, help her. Help her to become everything I was, and help her set out to do what I always tried to do."
She stared up at him, gaping. She blinked. The action understated her overwhelm.
"Would you? Do this one last thing for me?"
"One last thing?" An icy feeling ran up her spine and grabbed her by the jugular. It was the same fear that had crept up on her starting with his phone call, when he sounded so lost and detached. "No, I don't like this. I don't like the way this sounds. And I really don't like where this is going. Clark, please..."
"I've made up my mind." His tone was resolute, and his firm stare told her that he was not flexible on any of this. Anger bubbled to his surface. "Why does everyone get to know peace except for me? Why can't I have what everyone else does for once? Where's my peace?"
"Jesus, Clark! Is that what you call a solution? What about the people who depend on you?"
"They'll have Kara." The full weight of his confidence lay behind that statement, not wavering in the least for what he said next. "And I'll finally have peace."
Lois fumbled for words, any words. She blinked several times, as though she were still asleep, and if she blinked enough times, she would find herself magically awakened. She broke from her stupor, looking up to him, begging for him to understand. "Death isn't peace. It's dead! Is that what you really think you want?"
His face was not the vibrant reflection of the sun it had been for so long. It was not the face she had kissed on their wedding day, nor was it the face she had woken up to every morning for several years. This face was stone with sharp features carved in a permanent frown. The light inside seemed to have gone out, and now the outside longed to be gone with its warm flame. "Everyone knows when it's their time, Lois. Myself included." He turned his back to her, and slowly headed for the doorway.
Before he could reach the threshold, she jumped off the bed and wedged herself between him and the exit. "Whoa! Hold on a minute! Where are you going? What are you going to do?"
He stepped to the side, attempting to go around her.
There were tears of desperation pooling in the corners of her eyes. "Don't you dare even think about leaving until you answer me!"
"You really want to know what I want?" He did not wait for her to say yes or no. His tone cooled, and his voice softened. It was the only time in her recent memory that he had filled with that much conviction. "I want to leave this world the way I came into it."
She didn't even blink. But he was already gone.
The noon sun's rays kissed every green inch of the field. The sky was perfectly clear, and all on the farm was quiet. Spring was blooming, and birds were outside chirping an uneven melody. Clark sat at the kitchen table, staring listlessly at the beautiful day just beyond the screen door. He hid from the outside world. Shying away from it.
Until finally, he caught a sound in the distance. As soon as the rumble reached his ears, he realized the birds had stopped singing. His head picked up and his back straightened. Slowly, he stood, pushing the chair away and approaching the door. He stepped out onto the porch.
It was close. He could feel it in his blood. Boiling. Literally burning in his veins as the time he had awaited so patiently drew nearer.
The phone was ringing. The sound seemed light-years away. Who would be calling? Who even knew he was here? It could have been Lois. He doubted that anyone else would be searching for him. There was no else who cared enough to look.
A distant streak of white-hot fire in the sky, and the ringing was instantly forgotten. This was it. This was his moment.
The ball of white flame turned into a smoking green as it breached the atmosphere and rocketed to the earth. Clark watched the meteor as it fell and crashed into an empty field a mile away. He turned his eyes skyward again and saw a dozen more coming in the first one's wake.
Clark slowly descended the steps, boldly venturing out onto the open lawn, watching in silent and sober awe as history repeated itself.
Two more meteors, large chunks of his long-destroyed home planet, plunged into the fields around him, leaving ashen trails of smoke smeared across the blue horizon.
As another two came down, Clark noticed a metal object of significant size fly past, hurtling down to the ground with the giant meteor rocks on the same trajectory. His eyes widened, his stare following it overhead until it disappeared behind the distant trees.
It was the ship. Her ship. Kara. Arriving just as his had. She was safe inside, and when it landed, she would emerge from that ship as an adult. She wouldn't speak any of the native languages of this planet yet. But Lois knew about the Fortress of Solitude up North, and there Kara would be educated. The Fortress had been Clark's, and now it would be hers. She would be the world's Supergirl just as he had been it's Superman. He wasn't abandoning them. The people of Earth would have a new protector to take care of them. She would be their hero.
And her coming would save him as well. He would be the first to owe her his salvation. The last several years he had longed for relief, to be rescued from this thankless existence. And now, the answer was raining down from the heavens. The powers that guided the universe were handing him a way out, acknowledging that his purpose had been fulfilled. He was being released from his obligation and unchained from his fate.
Dozens of rocks showered the area as the meteors broke up on entry. As the fragments landed, the debris splintered and scattered, the force of collision burying them under the soil. Clouds of dirt were rising with every pebble of Kryptonite that drove itself into the earth. Larger meteors screeched through the sky in the tow of the ship, barreling down to the outskirts of Smallville on a path of destruction.
The fragments were not falling far from the front door of the Kent Farm. She had been sent to him, after all, and this is where he was supposed to be. But no meteors would find him in their path. He had to find them and put himself in their path.
This was really it now. This was the end. He welcomed it. With open arms.
Clark breathed in deeply, and then began walking into the field. He could see the chaos ahead, the very chaos he was walking into so wantonly.
As he got closer to the points of impact, small pieces whizzed by him like bullets. All it would take was one. At this speed, one the size of a pin hitting right spot, and this would all be over. Everything he had yearned to end. Everything he was tired of being and doing and being unable to have. It would all be finished in seconds.
The amount of Kryptonite falling in this area was heavy, and it wasn't long before a meteor half his size flew right in front of his eyes, missing him by mere inches. He felt the weakness in him, every cell in his body was raging at the effects of the radiation. But he persevered, even as every step hurt to take. The agony grew worse, and he still held his head up as he forced himself forward. Into the storm.
When he lifted his finger to a spot that was stinging on his ear, he found blood. A tiny piece had nicked him. His head was pounding, and his vision was starting to blur. He mustered all his strength to stand and press on deeper into the impact zone.
Blinking away the haze, he squinted to see a dark silhouette directly ahead of him. As he forced himself to focus, he realized there were two silhouettes. Side by side. It was a couple, and they were holding hands.
Then, the dust seemed to settle, and Clark's vision miraculously returned to normal. He could see their faces, and without having to wonder, he knew. As if by instinct or long-lost memory, he knew they were his parents. Jor-El and Lara.
They smiled warmly at him, calling him to them. But he didn't move. Instead of going to them, he stopped in his tracks. He did not even feel the effects of the meteors all around him, nor did he really notice the one that shot through the field between him and his parents, obscuring them for the briefest of seconds. But he never lost sight of them.
Their smiles widened. They seemed radiant, glowing with pride and happiness.
A tear slipped from Clark's eye, and a smile cracked in the corner of his lips.
They were waiting for him, beckoning him to join them.
Clark's smile spread across his face. It was the first time he had remembered feeling genuinely happy in almost a decade.
He put his foot out to take a step in their direction.
Suddenly, everything went black.
The room was full of electronic equipment. Metal panels, dials, lights, tubes, a monitor keeping track of a faint but steady heartbeat. And a cylindrical chamber, laying flat in the middle of the white room, the top half made of transparent plastic. It resembled an iron lung, only in cryotube form. Lex approached the chamber, staring placidly down at the body resting inside it.
As he peered in at Clark, he remembered venturing into the field in the aftermath of the second Kryptonian meteor shower to hit Smallville in almost fifty years. He remembered pulling that body out from under a pile of iridescent meteorites. He remembered how sickly pale Clark had been, and that Clark had been physically dead. He remembered dragging Clark's body out of the contaminated area, ordering the helicopter to come to their location, and telling all the scientists at Cadmus Labs to standby because he was coming in with an emergency. Most of all, he remembered the moment they had managed to restart Clark's heart and picked up the vaguest hint of his pulse returning.
One of the doctors interrupted Lex's thoughts to hand him the latest read-out, and as Lex began to look over the information, he saw Clark's eyes gradually start to open.
He set the papers down and stared inside the cylinder. "Clark? Can you hear me?"
Clark turned his head, his eyes opening a bit more as they settled on Lex. He gulped hard, struggling to get his vocal chords to work. "Lex?" His voice was raspy and weak, but what he had uttered was unmistakable.
Lex merely nodded.
"How... did you... find me?" Clark's words started coming easier the more he spoke.
"Lois," Lex replied simply.
As Clark's eyes started to wander his surroundings, he lifted a trembling hand to the plastic cover above him, seeming confused and mildly frightened to find himself confined to a cold casket. His eyes widened, and his breathing grew more labored. The monitor showed sudden spikes in his heartbeat, worry gripping him as though he thought he was trapped.
Lex's tone was soothing in an attempt to assuage the onset of Clark's panic. "You're still very weak. You're on a respirator and an IV. This is all just until you're strong enough. A lot of Kryptonite got into your bloodstream, and you're not nearly as healthy as you should be. As soon as we're sure you can survive off life support, I'm taking you out of this thing."
Clark diverted his eyes from Lex, sadness filling them.
"It's just temporary, I promise." But Lex suspected that it was not the chamber that was making Clark despondent and uncomfortable. "You're going to be fine. The worst is behind you."
Lex turned away as a man in a white lab coat came over to him, showing him test results. Lex was encouraged by what he saw, and as soon as the man got Lex's approval of his work, the stranger exited the room.
Finally alone with Clark as he was awake and alert, Lex gazed down into the large tube. He grimaced to see that Clark was still avoiding eye contact. Lex was silent for a minute, and then he began gently. "When you came to my office, you wanted to tell me something." He paused, watching Clark carefully. "What you said wasn't what you had come to say, was it?"
Without glancing in Lex's direction, Clark shook his head delicately.
"What were you going to tell me?"
Clark finally turned his head to meet Lex's stare. The hesitation was there in his eyes, but there was apathy in them too. He didn't seem to think it mattered. Still, he swallowed visibly, and with mild emotion, he timidly held Lex's gaze. "I love you."
The straight line of Lex's lips curled into a soft smile. He placed his hand on the plastic shield. "Love isn't the word."
Clark's brow furrowed, his voice cracking as he started to talk again. "What is the word?"
Lex grinned in earnest, and tenderness coated his velveteen timbre. "Destiny."
The hardness of his expression melting away, Clark pressed his unsteady hand to the plastic where Lex's rested.
"The storm's passed." Lex pressed his hand harder to the divider between them. "Sleep. I'll be here when you wake up."
Clark closed his eyes. A profound peace warming his face.