Title: Waking Moments

Author: Clannadlvr

Fandom: Smallville

Character: Lana

Rating: PG

A/N: Wow…I can't believe I wrote Lana…I never thought it would happen, but, well, here it is…life from her point of view. This is a really short piece…in the future, once she knows the truth about Clark. This really just came to me in a fit of madness…I've never identified with her before…but now…yeah. Completely unbeta'd…

It all made sense later on.

The lies…the excuses…the convenient absences.

But strangely, all these years later, it wasn't enough.

It didn't matter that he had been "doing good."

It didn't matter that he'd thought he had been protecting everyone he loved.

All that was important was that the truth had been something that he'd been too selfish with. The one gift he wouldn't give.

She'd worked on forgiveness…each day she wrote out "I understand why you did what you did. I know how you kept it from us all these years. I forgive you for the lies and the betrayals."

But every stroke of the pen, every word she wrote in her "simple abundance journal" felt like the lie you tell Aunt Nell when she asks you if you've smoked…or if you're still a virgin…or if you've done any of the things that she's asked you never to do. Maybe because she was never brave enough to do them herself. You'll never know.

Even so, time was an eraser. All those disappointments…half-realities…forgotten promises. Those were things she'd left behind in Smallville…moments she'd banished from her memory, or so she'd thought.

But the truth was, no matter how far she'd come, so much of who she was…was a matter of who she'd been.

An Alice in a maze of tornadoes and caterpillars…a jabberwocky the only one who'd ever told her the truth.

And even that was suspect.

So, still, every day she wrote in her journal, like trying to work out those lies and truthful facsimiles to get to some sort of realistic revelation that she could live with. That she could at least coexist with.

But writing was so much easier than living, and even now her ink had run out.

So she packed it all up…the book…the pen…the half hearted scribbles…and started over.

Threw out the book…a fresh page facing upward, denying her innocence.

It didn't matter if salvation came in the form of Whitney…or Jason…or maybe even Lex…

Because, suddenly, she felt whole.

And that was ok.