Orange wasn't his color.
Not that anyone cared, but Lex Luthor looked horrible in orange. The stark, obnoxious color paled his skin, his eyes, his personality. Or maybe that was the lighting inside his small cell in solitary confinement.
At first they had thrown him into a regular housing cell like a steak to starving dogs; they had all surrounded him, a hungry glint in their eyes. He was a Luthor, they, lowly scum on the food-chain of life. Of course they'd advanced on him. In prison, he was out of his league, stepping on their territory. And for the first time, Lex had actually been afraid – although his cool façade never would have showed it.
It had only been seven hours when the first scuffle broke out; someone had accused Lex of ruining Kansas with his executive pollution, putting up warehouses and factories here and there like hotels and houses on a Monopoly game-board. Lex had ignored the man, keeping to himself in the corner until the man advanced and tried to get a rise out of him. Lex just smiled at him, as if tempting him to throw a punch, slap, anything. The man almost looked about ready to back down, before Lex had let loose a quietly cruel, harsh laugh.
Perhaps he had let his contempt and misery get the better of him, but the other man had started the fight. A swift punch was thrown that caught Lex in the jaw, disorienting him for a few seconds before he had swung back with a sharp uppercut, before half the cell was joining the fight and fists couldn't be identified to their owners.
The stunt had landed him solitary confinement for a month. Too bad his trial was in a week.
Lex yanked at the collar of the jumpsuit, pulling the stiff, itchy fabric away from his sensitive skin. Five days in here and he was already suffering withdrawals from his smooth Armani fabrics.
"Luthor, you have a visitor."
The harsh voice pulled Lex's attention from the collar and towards the bars; a hefty guard stood outside, his arms crossed, his expression completely serious. Lex let his hand fall and perked his shoulders up a bit.
"Who is it?" Unless he was mistaken, he had the right to choose if he wanted to see them or not. If it was his father or, worse, Clark Kent, he'd be staying in his cell, thank you very much. The guard's massive arms twitched.
"Lois Lane. Says it's urgent."
Lex furrowed his pale eyebrows; what did Lois Lane want with him? Was he subject for her next Inquisitor story? He closed his eyes and nodded. "Fine."
The guard unlocked the heavy iron barred door and slid it back so that Lex could step out; Lex was silently grateful for a chance to stretch his legs outside of his cell. And besides, he hadn't had many visitors; even if it was Lois Lane, he was glad to talk to someone from 'reality.' Because prison felt like a game, a dream. . . a nightmare Lex couldn't get out of. I didn't kill Lana.
Lex positioned himself on the prisoners' side of the Plexiglas visiting booth, sitting down on the hard plastic bench. The light filtering through the security-glass windows was weak and sick-looking. Lex's eyes fell on the door at the far end of the hall, waiting for it to open and for Ms. Lane herself to come up to his booth, that intrepid look in her eyes.
The guard retreated to a far wall but kept a watchful eye on Lex; he was far enough away to keep form eavesdropping in on the conversation and yet close enough to know if anything was going wrong. Lex ignored him and kept his eyes locked on the door still, willing it to open.
When it finally did, the woman walking through didn't even remotely resemble Lois Lane. The rich auburn hair was flowing freely, bouncing slightly as she walked in; large sunglasses covered most of her face, a long white trench-coat wrapped around her petite body and the collar on it flipped upward to hide her face even more. Her skinny-fit jeans were tucked into stiletto boots that Lex was almost certain he recognized as. . .
The woman stopped right before his booth and seated herself, setting her Coach purse on the floor at her feet. The Gucci sunglasses reflected the dim sunlight in Lex's eyes, and he winced as she pulled them down slightly over her nose to reveal her eyes, a sinister smile pulling at the corner of her lips.
"Hello, Lex," Lana Luthor said, pulling the sunglasses off and folding them carefully in her hand. Lex gaped at her, his eyes wide and disbelieving.
She had dyed her hair, changed her makeup, tweaked her clothes, but she was still the woman he remembered, still Lana, alive and breathing, even smiling, in front of him. The woman he had supposedly murdered, smiling that damn brilliant smile at him through a Plexiglas window.
"Lana!" he choked, his voice barely above a whisper; he couldn't find it out of surprise. "Clark said you. . . But I thought. . ." He seemed to regain his composure a bit. "You set me up!"
Lana's vindictive smile twisted into a frown. "Oh, Lex, I think you've got it all wrong. You set me up." The frown slipped away, to be replaced my a vengeful glint in her eye. "Or are you forgetting our baby?"
Lex felt his palms sweating as they tightened on his thighs. "You landed me in prison, you—"
Lana laughed a genuine laugh. "I'm flattered that you would think I did all this by myself," she said, glancing at their surroundings. "No, Lex, as much as I would like to have the pleasure of saying this is all my doing, I can't."
"So who helped you? Your lovely farm boy, or that sniveling reporter?"
"Both people who used to be your friends, Lex." Lana glared at him through the barrier. "But no, they had nothing to do with it. I have stronger allies, more powerful friends who could pull it off effortlessly. Lionel just happened to be an unaware accomplice."
Lex bared his teeth slightly, wishing her could get through the Plexiglas and possibly even do what he had been imprisoned for in the first place. "I almost loved you. For about a minute. But almost."
"Prison really does turn the heart cold. If you even had a heart to begin with."
"You would know about cold hearts, wouldn't you," Lex snarled. He was keeping his voice low for some reason, he wasn't sure why. "You stopped loving anyone but yourself long ago."
"And you stopped being anything remotely close to human long ago, as well." Lana's lips were taut, as they always were when she was angry. "Cloning people? Super-charging corpses?" She shook her head in disgust. "I may not have agreed with Lionel's tactics, but he was right about you."
"My father used you as a pawn in his game," Lex said. "Does that mean anything to you?"
"Of course it does. But personally I'd prefer to see you incarcerated before him. He'll get what's coming to him."
"What happened to you, Lana?" Lex whispered, peering at her with sadness and pity. "What happened that caused you to become this bitter, this cold? That you would let your husband go to prison for your apparent and fake death?"
Lana began to rise from the bench, picked up her purse and unfolding the sunglasses. "I let a Luthor trick me into believing I loved him."
She slipped the sunglasses on and gave her collar a quick straightening; the guard had not seen her but if he had, Lana was not concerned; he probably wouldn't have recognized her anyways. She straightened her spine and looked back at Lex through the glass. "Have fun burning in hell, Lex."
Lex pounded his fist on the glass, standing up and trying to catch her attention, but she swiftly turned her back on him; guards from all over swarmed on Lex, two taking him by the arms and pulling him away from the glass.
"That's her!" he shouted. "That's Lana, that's. . . That's my wife!"
A guard approached Lana. "Are you alright, Miss Lane?" Lana smiled and nodded at the use of the pseudonym. She could still hear Lex's yells of recognition as they pulled him down the hall.
"I'm fine," she said, bowing her head slightly. "But I'm concerned about him. A few years back he suffered from a psychotic break; I'm afraid that the stress of loosing his wife and being imprisoned may have caused a relapse."
The guard nodded at the information. "We'll have him checked out. Thank you, Miss Lane."
Lana pushed past him and back out into the lobby, walking through the dim prison before reaching the refreshing outdoors. A vindictive smile returned to her lips, lighting up her features as she let the wind whip her hair around her and reached for the handle of the truck Clark had let her borrow. She was free from the choking grasp of the Luthors, free to live her life with the man she really loved. Starting up the truck, she barreled back towards Smallville, back to the Kent farm and Clark's loving embrace that awaited her in the loft.
No one seemed to notice as Lana Lang drove through the streets, her smile brilliant and, for once in the past year, completely happy.