I'm terrible at following prompts. :/ This was written in the same continuity as Perpetual Night and Stolen Night.
An ancient woman made her way down a darkened hallway of the Luthor mansion. She wore a simple white wrap dress that reached down nearly to her feet, and flowed behind her. Her long white hair fell unadorned down her back and was nearly the same color. Those who saw her, often mistook her for a ghost, for surely this is how a ghost would dress.
She did not mean to frighten people; indeed it was only simpler to wear such a thing. That it hung lightly on her frail, aged body was a welcome relief to the often severe bouts of arthritis she experienced in damp or cold weather. She rather thought that she looked like some age old Greek God, and that is how she felt.
For who but the Gods could wield such power?
As the woman crept closer to her destination, she made each step slow and deliberate. Everything about her was this way these days. Precise. She must be careful, lest she fall.
When she reached the door that she sought, the old woman lifted her hand to knock. The paper-thin skin stretched across her tiny knuckles as she rapped twice on the door, softly.
An elderly man with silver hair answered, his reading glasses perched delicately on his nose. He held an old book in his hand, and the woman thought to herself that everything seemed old in this place.
"Mother?" The man appeared startled, for the hour was late. "Is something wrong? Is there trouble?"
Inside, the woman chuckled at her son. He had always been a tough boy, eager and ready to fight for her. They had been constant companions over the years. Too many years really, the boy was nearly as ancient as she of course.
"No, my darling. There is no trouble. I need only to talk to you."
The man smiled, relieved, and stepped aside for her to enter his chamber. She thought that his stature was so gentlemanly, so familiar, that it was both a comfort and a curse to be near him.
She smiled at the invitation, but shook her head. "Follow me," she told him, and turned back the way she had come.
A click of the door behind her, and then his footfalls echoed hers. "You could have called, Mother, if you wanted me to come," he teased.
She smiled. "Shouldn't a mother be allowed to call on her son however she wishes?" she teased back. Without looking, she could sense his smile. They walked together down this corridor and that until they reached the basement storage room.
The steel reinforced door opened with the use of three separate sets of keys, a combination lock and password that only his mother and father had known. Since his father's passing nearly thirty years prior, his mother was the only living person who could gain access.
The woman winced as she traveled down the stairs into the room, feeling her joints scream and ache from the stress of it. No matter, her task would soon be complete.
The man marveled at the room, full of lost and shrouded treasures that his family had accumulated over the years. A century's worth of trinkets, art, old furniture and boxes of mementos told their life story. As they moved through a tiny path in the debris, the man looked at each carefully labeled box.
Alexander Luthor, Baby-2 yrs; Katherine Luthor, Wedding; Lionel Luthor, Court Papers & Records 2002-2004. The boxes seemed to continue on forever.
"What are we looking for?" he asked his mother in a daze. He had never before been permitted to enter what seemed to be a sacred place. She didn't answer, and continued on through the maze. He followed her obediently.
When finally they came to a stop, the man was puzzled to see several stacks of metal boxes, reaching up to the ceiling. His mother reached for yet another set of keys and opened the one closest to them, stepping aside so that he could peer inside.
The only things that filled the mini-fortress were several identical black books. The man frowned and looked up at his mother, detecting notes of nervousness and relief in her eyes. She smiled weakly and sighed, nodding her approval.
The man reached into the box and withdrew one of the volumes. He smiled as he opened it, to find his mother's handwriting on every page.
"My journals," she said in a near whisper.
He gasped, realizing that there must have been hundreds. The one he held in his hands was dated March-June 2033.
His mother sighed again deeply, as if expelling memories. "I began keeping a journal when I was eight years old. A doctor's advice actually, to help ease the pain of losing my parents. He thought it best for me to find a way to articulate my feelings." She clasped her hands in front of her, and gave a soft chuckle. "I suppose I was able to do that."
"You've been doing this for over one hundred years?"
The question was more a statement, and the woman only smiled. "You'll find two of each time period. I always kept a false journal out in plain sight to dissuade anyone from looking for the true book."
"Which ones are which?"
"You'll be able to tell. The false books contain only superficial information- appointments, to-do lists and the like. I suppose that will still be of some importance, but my feelings, I kept in the others. Everything I held inside over the years is in those pages. The struggles of being First Lady, the politics, the fight to hold onto Luthorcorp after your Daddy died, even my exile following the assassination of your brother. It's all there. Everything."
The man looked back down at the book that he held in his trembling hands, and recognized his brother's name. Alexander. Surely, she had much to say about his brother. The one who became Senator, who married and raised a strong family. He was the namesake, the heir.
A shadow crossed his face. "What is it?" his mother asked.
"Nothing."
"Tell me," she prompted gently.
The man smiled with a heavy heart. How to tell her how he feels? He had certainly not spent one hundred years learning to express himself.
He cleared his throat. "I suppose you would not have had as much to write about me in your journals," he said, and instantly felt selfish. It was just like him to turn a situation around like this.
"What are you saying?" Her face crinkled with worry.
The man let his fingers gingerly drift across the pages of her book. "I've done nothing," he whispered. As the words left his lips, tears formed in his eyes. In the ninety years he had been on this Earth, he had never uttered such a thing.
"I have done nothing," he repeated. "Nothing to be worthy of a mention in these pages. I never married, or helped with Luthorcorp, or did anything at all that could be called good. There is blood on my hands, Mother. I've done so much wrong."
He began to weep, and felt the comforting touch of his mother's hand upon his head. Who could have known the vengeance he would work after his brother's horrible death? It had only been a few weeks since the government presented his mother with the folded American flag that had draped his father's casket, and the sadness was still too raw.
The man had come like a plague in the night, indeed a massive black mist. "Kill them all," his mother had said while looking upon Alexander's murdered body in the morgue. And he had done so with every weapon at his disposal. He took their enemies by the throat and crushed the life from them until his mother's grief had weakened and she fled to Katherine's side in Greece where she stayed in exile for a decade.
A soft hand tipped his chin up, and he raised his eyes to see her sadly smiling face. "You have done nothing for which you should apologize. You have devoted your life to protecting this family, at all costs, asking nothing for yourself in return. You have battled for me, and defended and there is no greater glory for a son to achieve."
Though it must have pained her, his mother dropped down to her knees before him, and took his miserable face into her soft, withered hands.
"Julian, no mother ever loved a son more than I." He wrapped his arms around her tiny waist, and laid his head against her breast. Lana held him back, and with her cheek resting on top of his head, she sighed in contentment.
After the tears passed, Julian helped his mother return the book and close the box of precious keepsakes.
"Why have you shown me these now?" he asked suspiciously.
A smile crossed her face as she secured the lock in place. He was just like his Father- always full of questions. "I want you to publish them after I am gone," she answered slowly.
He looked alarmed at the suggestion, and she placed a soothing hand on his shoulder. Her eyes sparkled brilliantly, like he hadn't seen in a very long time. "It is important to me, that our story be told truthfully, in our own words. I have given only one interview in all my years as a Luthor, for this very purpose. This is our legacy. This is what will cement our name into history. Your Father should never be forgotten, and with this he never will."
Color stained her cheeks, and Julian was delighted to see so much passion evident in his mother's face again.
"I am putting this to you because I trust that you will release it all. The others would want to white out anything unfavorable, but I have not spent these many years compiling so faithfully for it to become nothing but lies and half-truths. We have been fierce and ruthless and powerful, but we have been beautiful too. Julian, do you remember? How beautiful we were! No dynasty ever came so close to heaven and hell as our own. The joy, sadness, fury and insurmountable passion that we, collectively, contribute to our name is a work of art to be celebrated, not hidden. It is time now, to share our great work with the world, so that they will carve our name into stone and never forget what being a Luthor truly means."
She placed another thin hand on his other shoulder and looked deeply into his eyes. "You must be our voice Julian. After you are gone, the core family will have disappeared from this world. And from the next we will watch as you re-write history. Our history." Lana smiled, and withdrew her hands, letting her fingers drift across his cheeks.
Julian shivered from the intensity of her gaze. From the tiny shell she inhabited, his mother had truly achieved greatness. For true power is not to conquer, it is to command.
"Yes," he whispered, and smiled back at her.
They turned to weave their way back through the maze, and Julian's eyes fell on another metal locked box, much larger than the ones his mother's journals had been in. "What is that?" he asked.
Lana turned and peered through the darkness with old eyes to see what he was pointing at. "Oh," she answered, recognizing its shape. "That belongs to your Father. It's where he keeps his most important things."
He could only guess at the treasures contained within, but felt that it was not appropriate for him to question her about them. As they left and turned the lights out on the room, Julian felt as though he were leaving something precious behind.
One week later
With a heaviness that he had not felt in many years, Julian stepped up to the metal doorway and used the keys his mother left him to unlock it. He had buried her only three days prior.
Officially, Lana Luthor's death was ruled to be natural, but Julian knew that was a lie. As was always the case with his mother, she had to have her way. He'd found her the morning after, lying on a chaise in Katherine's old bedroom- the place she had fled to after the death of her husband. Their shared bedroom hadn't been opened in more than thirty years.
At first glance, she had appeared to be sleeping, but it took only a moment for him to understand that she had left, taking poison at some time during the night. A basket full of letters to each of her surviving descendants sat at her right on a table, and in his own, she revealed the password to the room she'd shown him.
Rumors were already swirling about the cause of the family matriarch's death, and though he did not want to, his mother's supernatural call urged him forward to begin his work.
2152099 unlocked the door. Today's date. Had his parents truly planned for this day to come? Was his mother always intended to be the guardian of the family until now?
Julian entered the room and wiped a hand over his face, feeling anxious. The sheer number of things to be done overwhelmed him. Already at the age of 90, cataloging and preparing it all for release seemed a daunting task. It would for anyone really.
Already though, he had a publisher ready, practically foaming at the mouth to get their hands on his mother's journals. The Metropolis Museum would be sending people over in the morning to cart away and preserve the many mementos that his mother had saved over the years. Baby teeth, locks of hair, report cards, graduation notices, wedding invitations, birth announcements, newspaper articles, awards and medals and pictures- so many pictures! Babies and grand babies, pets and friends, portraits and magazine covers from across the globe.
In one corner, Julian found thousands of letters written to his mother, some from friends and colleagues, others from strangers who hoped to feel close to such a mythical person.
As he ventured through the room, deciding what should go when and to where, Julian saved the best for last. His father's metal box, which he suspected the contents of which had never been viewed by another person.
"It's where he keeps his most important things."
It opened with a rough sounding click, the hinges stiff from not being used. Dozens of files littered the chest, some paper and others digital. Presidential and government secrets appeared before him, and Julian trembled. His Father had been an aggressive, but beloved leader. It wasn't until after his death that that image tarnished a bit when his enemies began whispering about all of his dark deeds.
Lex Luthor had truly changed the world, some said for the better and others grumbled for the worst. Only time could say for sure.
Julian pushed aside the many records and audio files till he came across a large, closed envelope. It was weathered and very old, having likely been opened and filled many times before. It was the only thing in the box that had such a look, and Julian seized upon it, knowing that what lay inside was possibly the most valuable.
Carefully, he opened the brittle envelope and spilled the contents out in a waterfall of color. He smiled broadly, tears spilling down his cheeks and laughed to himself. His Father, who would come to be known as one of the greatest men who ever lived, prized these little treasures above all other things.
Dozens of photographs littered the ground in front of him; Luthors, his family, his children, his Lana, bright eyed and beautiful, smiling and young. Lana as a waitress at the long vanished Talon. Katherine as a child with her chubby arms around Alex's neck. And then he saw himself, sitting on his Father's bare belly on a beach somewhere. Julian couldn't have been more than two years old, and he and Lex had not been looking at the camera, but at each other.
The most important things were family after all.