Title: The truth will hunt you down

Author: Jessspider

Rating: T

Spoiler: Smallville season 6, episode 19 : Nemesis

Authors notes and summary: This was written after I saw the trailer for Nemesis, and I felt really frustrated at the time, because of the delay between episodes being shown at the time and hence all we had to go on were some trailers. So based on what I saw, and what I had imagined to happen, I wrote the following. It is what I believe to be the feelings/POV (point of view) of Clark and Lana during that moment after both Lex and Clark escaped from the underground system of tunnels. Positive criticisms/reviews welcome, though I am not expecting much as I just wanted to allow this to be 'out there' so that some part of that frustration that I had initially felt towards the trailer can be let go of.

She held her breath. Caught between two directions, she refused to believe that Clark was left behind in the cave below. Dust in the air, a thousand and one thoughts. She felt the throbbing of her pulse beneath her jaw. Fear had already invaded her heart, beating so fast it could hardly contain itself within her frail chest. He survived, I know he did she fought with herself. But I can't find you, where are you? Lana was losing herself.

The image of firemen blurring into yellow before her eyes. She couldn't see. She couldn't see him.Tears overwhelmed her. Nothing. People all around her, infront of her. Paralysed, she could hardly see through heavy eyes as she scanned the people around her. Chloe appeared beside her and with her arrival came another.

In one blink of an eye, there he was. Like a curtain being lifted, she broke when she saw him. Her heart spilling over with the realisation of the one before her. The one who truly gave life to her body, meaning to her soul. He stood there, as handsome and couragous as ever despite the dirt covered all over him.

Dust peppered his hair and face, his favorite blue t-shirt describing carefully the severity of his momentary misfortune. She saw him. She saw him, and it was all she could do to stop herself from running to him.

He felt her from afar. Her stare, her fear, her concern, her worry like nothing he had ever experienced before. His skin burnt from the heat of her presence. He lifted his head, turning his right, seeking the source of this connection to him. Lana.

There she stood in the distance, her hazel eyes like lightening to his baby blue. Something stirred in his soul like so many times before when he happened upon her petite form. Unmoving, unflinching, he stood firm, his jaw set, his heart held in mid-beat as her small desperate feet hurried tentatively towards him.

Heart beating quicker than quick, Lana, was losing her breath completely, pain and longing eating away at her very core. Sensing her heart beating faster than normal, Clark knew. Clark new then that all that had been exchanged before was a veiling. A veiling of the truth.

As if in one stride, now she was suddenly before him. Hurting, fearful. Afraid to speak. Afraid to say more. Afraid to hurt him again. But needing him so. Needing for herself to be reassured, to be healed. She searched his face for something, anything. Wanting his love for her to still be true, hoping she hadn't pushed it away forever...

He looked down upon her, her breath visibly quickening beneath his x-ray vision, her heartbeat pounding loudly in his ears and in her beautiful complexion he saw her fear. Her fear and hope of his acceptance of her. Please Clark she seemed to say to him. Her soul's aura touching his.

Unable to wait for anything more from him, she hugged him fiercely taking him aback by her unexpected move. Her arms tightly wrapped themselves around his body, almost like a lost child, holding and feeling his firm form as if to make sure that he really was there, he really was alright, as if to ask if he could belong to her, a lover's last embrace...unsure if this would be ever allowed to her once again.

He looked down at his chest. There, against his happy yearning heart, rested the head of the girl of his dreams. A moment he never thought he would be blessed with again. The wife of his nemesis. His left hand touched her arm. Its ok lana he wanted to say. I'm alright his wondering mind said to her. Why does she cling to me so? Her right hand moving to his chest, clutching at his shirt.

A wondrous feeling of security washed over the both of them for a single second in time.

A single second in time that left Lana breathing for the first time that day. With her eyes closed, her face against his body, almost missing the spot on his chest that she long ago claimed for herself, she wished for an eternity in his arms. Please she pleaded to a God she hardly knew. please give me an eternity with him. His precious heart meaning more to her now than it ever did, beating as if with a new meaning for her.

She opened her eyes, fearing the spell she was bound to him by would be over.And just like that, it was. As her eyes caught sight of him, her husband. The one whose father had coercered her into marrying him. The one who she knew now more than ever in her life before, was not her 'real' husband. Lex had seen her. He was there waiting for her. Veiling herself once more, she lifted her head from his defined chest.

Clark could feel her pulling away from him again. Nothing but an inch of aura between them. Not understanding why, he tried to keep her there, his left hand now holding her right hand against his chest. His head focused down on her form curiously as she began her slow yet painful journey away from him. The distance between them increasing more and more with each milisecond as the only thing that was left were their hands. Loosening herself from his grip, and having to let her loosen herself for fear of harming her if he held on too tightly, palm to palm became fingers to fingers as she began to walk away.

With this final touch between them, her soft hand unable to leave his, she traced his form as far to the edge of his body as she could. Clark's hand needing to chase after hers held back as he watched its every movement like a cat waiting on its prey, until suddenly, just like that she had cleared him. His hawk eyes followed her disappearing fingers with realised pleasure. He knew that she was his. And as he observed her now, that hand heading to his enemy, he confirmed with himself the truth of the matter, She is in love with me.

With souls having momentarily reaffirmed their love for each other, he vowedsilently to his bald-headed cave companion, determination on his face, as he stared at the two embracing forms in the distance...The war's about to begin.

end