Author's note: This fanfic is actually a sequel to another fanfic. It's based on Tobiwolf13's amazing story, "Armageddon", which can be found on her website, Effulgent and Smoking Cool dot com.
Many thanks to Tobi who graciously gave permission to use her fic as background. Now go ahead and read her story. I'll wait.
Good story, wasn't it? It's based on the Season Seven, Episode Eighteen episode "Apocalypse". As you no doubt recall, that episode starts with Brainiac taking Kara to the Krypton of the past, on a mission to destroy baby Kal-El before the infant ever leaves Krypton.
Clark, in a fit of despondency, thinks it might be better if he did never leave Krypton. Chloe tries to make him see reason, but what does the trick is Jor-El putting Clark into a simulation (?) of an alternate world where Clark doesn't exist. In Tobiwolf's story, Clark really is in this alternate world, and things haven't gone well at all. Zod and his disciples have taken over Earth, and performed genocide on the human race. Lex, Chloe, Lois, Martha, and others are part of the sad remnant of humanity who are fighting a losing battle against the Kryptonian invaders. They don't much like Clark, this new Kryptonian who has just appeared, but Clark and the Resistance are able to work together to take down Zod et al.
In Tobiwolf's story, Clark is "killed" in the climactic battle, which sends him back to his own universe and back to show canon. But what if Clark made it through the battle, and had to stay on the alternate world? What would he do next? What would everyone else do next?
I couldn't stop thinking about that, and that's why I wrote this story. Once again, Very Special Thanks to Tobiwolf13 who had the idea, and who graciously gave permission to play in her universe.
Armageddon Aftermath
Clark straightened, fighting against the nausea induced by the kryptonite handcuffs. He stared at the members of the panel sitting on the dais in front of him - the panel that would decide his fate. His stomach churned. He'd never been very articulate, never a good arguer. He'd always left that up to others – his forte was to act - in secret in possible, overtly if not. He was a doer, not a talker. And now his lack of practice might seal his doom.
From left to right, their gaze met his. Not one of them had sympathy; the best was curiosity. Clark swallowed at the sight of the familiar faces, now distorted out of recognition. He'd known them all in his own world. Now he was in some dystopian parallel world, where old friends and acquaintances had become new enemies.
First, from the leftward-most position. Andrea Rojas stared back at him, her overt hostility apparent. Clark had last seen her at the Daily Planet in his own world, putting on her glasses to simulate the identity of a mild-mannered reporter. Little did the Metropolis Police Department and her Planet colleagues know that she was the vigilante dubbed "The Angel of Vengeance". A kryptonite-infused heart transplant had given her preternatural strength and agility.
The meteor power had allowed Rojas to survive when Zod and his henchmen invaded this Earth. Unfortunately, she seemed incapable of letting bygones be bygones, still seemed obsessed with vengeance. On Clark's world, Andrea had killed a man in revenge for her mother's death. He did not doubt that this version of The Angel of Vengeance had killed more than once. And Clark also knew that Rojas would have no qualms about killing him.
Next, there was a muscular man. Clark knew him as Arthur Curry. In Clark's own world, Arthur (he preferred to be called "A.C.") also had powers, but to the best of Clark's knowledge, in this case the powers were not due to meteor rock exposure. A.C. needed water all the time – to drink, if not to submerge himself in. Clark had seen the man gain strength when drenched, and knew that A.C. could swim nearly as fast as himself. A.C. also seemed to have the ability to throw some sort of energy bolts through the water. If it ever came to a showdown, Clark would do his very best to make sure that the fight happened on dry land – he wondered if he could win against A.C. in the other's element. A.C. looked back at him, expression neutral.
Moving rightward, Clark came to the third person on the panel that would decide his fate. His heart missed a beat as he looked at Chloe Sullivan, and she looked back at him with no hostility, just curiosity. His best friend at home, her fate in this new world was a cruel joke. Zod and Brainiac had burned her face and neck horribly on the right side; shiny scar tissue distorted her smile. She styled her hair in an attempt to cover the burned scalp, but the effort only called attention to her disfigurement. After a while, though, Clark had stopped seeing that – Chloe's personality shone through as the active, curious, strong reporter he'd known for years. It almost choked him to see the large diamond ring on her left hand – twisting the knife. In this world Chloe was engaged to Lex Luthor.
And Lex was the fourth person behind the table. Outwardly the same as the Lex that Clark had come to know and distrust, this Lex coolly returned Clark's gaze with a weighing one of his own. Seeing Clark stare at him, Lex deliberately took Chloe's hand in his own and squeezed it before letting it go.
Clark quickly turned to the next person in line, the one whose presence had wounded him the most. Martha Clark, formerly Martha Clark Kent. His mother – but not in this world. In this world, Kal-El, the refugee baby from the destroyed planet Krypton, had never been found by the Kents, never been raised as an Earth human. Martha and her husband Jonathan had divorced, their marriage unable to withstand childlessness, and Martha had moved back to Metropolis. One of the few remaining survivors of humanity who did not have a meteor power or was not a metahuman, her craftiness and intelligence had allowed her to survive the Kryptonian-led genocide that had destroyed 99% of Earth's human population. Her expression was hostile. She'd made a point of telling Clark that she was not his mother, that she hated him, and that he should stop looking at her "that way". When she had said those words, it was as if a knife had been twisted in his heart.
Clark sighed as he focused on the person to Martha's left, the woman who returned his look with steadfast courage and some distaste. Lois Lane. In Clark's world, she was a reporter wannabe with a yen for eighties hair bands, a veteran of drinking marathons, and a penchant for getting into trouble. In this world, a hardened soldier with a large knife scar on one cheek, and a tactical advisor for the human resistance. The resistance, that, against all odds, and with the help of Clark Kent and his cousin Kara, had succeeded in bringing down the reign of Zod and Brainiac.
Clark felt a tiny glimmer of hope. Lois had looked at him much more malevolently before he had gone with her and the other fighters up to the Fortress of Solitude. In this world, the Fortress didn't belong to Clark; no, it was his own world's Kara's Fortress. Brainiac had kidnapped Kara from Clark's own world, taken her back in time, and, after killing the baby Kal-El, had forced Kara to create the Fortress. Then Brainiac had murdered Kara. Clark had found this parallel world's Kara and had woken her from stasis. The two, along with the humans, had thrown all their dice on a desperate mission to bring down Zod, Zod's concubine Aethyr, and Brainiac. And their mission had succeeded. Lois had actually slapped Clark on the back in camaraderie before Clark had been stabbed by Brainiac and had fallen unconscious. Her gaze now seemed much more welcoming than it had before.
No such luck with the final member of the panel. Clark wondered if there was some sort of cosmic karma that kept reuniting him with old "friends". Actually, old wives. Alicia Baker sat at the far right of the table. In Clark's own world, as in this one, Alicia was a meteor-rock mutant – she could teleport, and she could take people along with her. He'd exposed his secret to her when they were trapped together in a falling elevator, and he'd punched through the wall and grabbed the driveshaft to slow the fall. She in turn, had covered for him by teleporting them both out of the elevator, so that no one would connect the hole in the elevator wall with Clark Kent or Alicia Baker.
But Alicia had another side. Back "home", she'd learned Clark's secret, drugged him with red kryptonite, and had convinced him to run off to Las Vegas together to get married. They'd been disrobing for their honeymoon night when he threw off his jacket with the red K in the pocket. Then Clark had come to his senses. Clark knew that his Alicia had been manipulative. There was little reason to believe that this new version wouldn't be the same.
This Alicia hated Clark, hated Kryptonians - that was obvious. She'd been against letting him live, ever since the resistance had captured him. His working with them to overthrow Zod had not changed her views. Seeing his gaze meet hers, she frowned, and pulled a small box out of her pocket. Opening it, she set a glowing piece of kryptonite on the table in front of her. Clark instinctively stepped backward, out of range, as he felt the sickening weakness touch him. His guard tensed, but relaxed again when he saw that Clark made no other move.
The final person in the room was the videographer. He fussed with his camera, set it on a tripod, and nodded to the panel members. Then he exited. Clark wondered who in this group felt the need to record the proceedings. Probably Lex or Martha, he thought wearily. They knew the importance of history.
The room was sunless and institutional. Gray paint warred with tired beige twelve-inch tile squares. The unshaded fluorescent lights gave off an annoying hum.
Lex Luthor banged a gavel. "This meeting of the Metropolis Council is now in session," he intoned.
"A little more formal than usual, bro?" A.C. asked.
Lex shrugged. "We'll be making some big decisions at this meeting. Let's do it by the book." Heads nodded as Lex named the members present, for the record.
"The only item of business on tonight's agenda…." Lex began. He didn't have to finish. Everyone there knew what was going on. But Lex completed his sentence, no doubt also for the record. "….the disposition of Kal-El of Krypton."
Clark straightened. "My name is Clark Kent," he said firmly. Time to start making his case. He didn't like this talk about disposition. That had an uncomfortably final sound to it.
"Do you deny you are Kryptonian?" Martha said, and the venom in her voice pained Clark. "Do you deny your name is Kal-El?" Rhetorical questions. Everyone in the room knew that too.
"I do not deny those things," Clark said steadily. "But the court….is this a court?"
"It will serve as one," Martha said grimly.
"But I would like to bring it to the court's attention that I was raised on Earth since the age of two. That my parents, Jonathan and Martha Kent – " he emphasized the latter, " – named me Clark after my mother's maiden name. And that I think of myself as Clark Kent."
Staring at the panel members and seeing curiosity on Chloe's and Lex's faces. Neutrality on A.C. and Lois. Hostility on Martha, Rojas, and Baker.
Well, at least that gives me an idea of the way things are leaning.
"None the less," Martha persisted, "you are Kryptonian? A member of the race who invaded the Earth? Who destroyed the world's military forces in eight hours? Who used its alien Fortress to change the Earth's climate so that the mean temperature is now four degrees Celsius? One of the race responsible for the murder of over six billion human beings?" Clark saw Lois' and A.C.'s neutrality fade into hostility as Martha reiterated the crimes that Zod had committed after he had escaped from the Phantom Zone.
On Clark's own Earth, Brainiac had engineered the release of Zod from the Phantom Zone. But Clark, along with Chloe and Martha, had defeated Brainiac and returned Zod to his imprisonment. Clark's world never knew how close it had come to kneeling before Zod.
But in this bleak alternate world, Clark hadn't been there – Brainiac had gone back in time and prevented Clark, as a baby, from ever leaving Krypton and coming to Earth. Here, there had been no one to stop Zod's reign of terror. Clark should have been there, and he wasn't. And this alternate Earth had suffered.
Time for a little defense. "Yes, I am Kryptonian. A Kryptonian who helped you overthrow Zod. A Kryptonian who made sure that the Earth's climate will come back to normal. A Kryptonian who is your ally." He made sure to lift his chin on that last.
Snorts came from Martha, Rojas, and Baker. The other two women had been silent so far, letting Martha speak for them.
Lex cleared his throat, and gained everyone's attention. "So, Clark Kal-El Kent, what are we to do with you?" His tone intimated, You'd better save yourself. Because we're not going to save you.
"I'd like to propose a deal," Clark blurted out. He'd practiced his opening in his cell ten times, and here he was, no finesse, no flash.
"Go on," Lex said.
"You set me free," Clark began. He lifted his cuffed hands slightly. The kryptonite glowed malevolently.
"No way," Baker and Rojas said simultaneously. Martha remained silent. A.C.'s eyes widened but he said nothing. Lois shook her head, but slowly. Lex and Chloe looked interested.
"Why should we?" Lex asked. "We know what your kind can do." A gesture indicated their Spartan, underground bunker. Despite Kara's adjustment to the Fortress (she promised return of Earth's climate to normal), the room was chilly enough that all the humans wore parkas. Clark had not been given any additional clothing. Despite losing his powers to kryptonite exposure; he was expected to make do with his red jacket.
"I promise I won't hurt anyone," Clark said, trying to make them understand by his tone that he meant this. He'd never wanted to hurt anyone, with his powers, or in any way. It was ironic that so many had been hurt by his secret. At least he'd saved lives using his powers. And in this world, everyone knew he was an alien. No use trying to keep that a secret anymore. "I will never use my powers to hurt. And I will never kill."
Skeptical looks on some of the panel members' faces.
"I'll help you," Clark said semi-desperately. This wasn't going well at all. "You've seen what Kryptonian powers can do. Imagine having them on your side."
Chloe, Lex, A.C., and Lois looked pensive. Martha's face twisted. Baker and Rojas maintained stony expressions.
"This world needs a lot of help," Clark said more quietly. "Zod and Brainiac are gone, but there's a lot to fix. This is my world too. I want to help fix it. I owe you."
"Go on." Chloe said this.
"First, I don't hurt anyone. I'll swear on a stack of Bibles, whatever. That's set in stone." Clark hoped repeating it would help his chances. "Second, you set me free."
Another round of skeptical looks.
"Third, I use my powers to help. Freely, willingly, to the best of my ability."
"And the fourth?" Martha's voice held a tiny bit of interest now.
"I get paid."
A snort from A.C. "Paid, bro? Come on." The expressions of the other panel members mimicked his incredulity.
"Hey, I know it's unrealistic right now," Clark said. He was getting their interest, from sheer outrageousness if nothing else. "You're on a wartime economy. But the bad guys are gone, the climate's going to be coming back to normal, and what do you do then? You've got to start some sort of medium of exchange. People are going to be doing jobs and they'll need to be paid somehow. Money makes the world go round."
"Ain't that the truth," Rojas muttered.
"And, if I'm using my abilities full time to help, it's a job." Clark met the skeptical gazes of the seven. "I'll settle for food, clothing, and shelter right now."
"The food could be a little dicey," Lex said musingly. "The children get priority. Given your….ability to absorb solar energy, we might ask you to defer your portion."
"I'm sure that could be worked out," Clark said, the thin, crying children he'd seen a fresh and unwelcome memory. He would certainly do what he could for them.
"Anything else in this deal of yours?" Martha asked skeptically.
"One last thing," Clark said. "I'm a citizen. I get citizenship. If I do this, if we have a bargain, you treat me like everyone else, legally speaking. I have all the rights and responsibilities of any other U.S. citizen."
"The United States is defunct," Lois said challengingly.
"Aren't you all going to get it set up again?" Clark challenged her back. "Zod's been taken down. There's nothing to stop you." He paced slightly, stopping as his guard neared him. "Now that you don't need to be a resistance any longer, what are you going to do about law and order? Is martial law all done?"
Surprised looks on the faces of Baker, Rojas, and Lois. They'd fought so long that thoughts of a time without war hadn't occurred. Chloe, Lex, Martha, and A.C. obviously had considered things, made contingency plans.
"Are you going to re-ratify the Constitution, and have it be the supreme law of the land?" Clark probed. He'd done some thinking about this, in his lonely prison.
Glances between Chloe, Lex, and Martha.
"If you do, I want it to apply to me. I want the Thirteenth Amendment to apply. Slavery or involuntary servitude is prohibited."
"Except as punishment for a crime," Martha retorted.
"I've committed no crime." Clark made sure to meet her eyes as he said that.
"Being Kryptonian is a crime," Alicia Baker snapped.
"Ah." Clark inhaled. "But what about the Fifteenth Amendment? 'The right of citizens of the United States shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race."
Lex had a tiny smile on his lips. "You forgot to add 'color, or previous condition of servitude' to that."
"Um." Clark decided to press on and ignore Lex's growing amusement. "And the Fourteenth Amendment would cover me too. 'No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.'" Clark was glad for that tenth-grade civics class and the insistence of Mrs. Daugherty that her students know the Bill of Rights. Clark had taken it further, and had memorized, not only all twenty-seven amendments, but the complete text of the Constitution.
"You're not a citizen," Baker said.
"I want to be," Clark said. "That's what this whole deal is about." He tried to keep his voice from trembling. "I want the constitutional protections – " he raised his cuffed hands to show the panel the glowing Kryptonite. " – against cruel and unusual punishment."
"Eighth Amendment," Chloe muttered.
She must have had Mrs. Daugherty too. "I know a lot of bad things have happened to this world," he said. "And some of it is my fault. I want to make amends. I will help, if you let me go." Clark straightened, met the eyes of each panel member in turn.
Panel members looking away from him, starting to shoot glances at each other.
"Let's be honest with each other," Clark said. There was a curious freedom in basically having nothing left to lose. "You can't keep me around here forever. With these cuffs on, I'm just another mouth to feed."
"Or not," Baker muttered.
"Exactly." Clark steeled himself for the harsh truth. "It's time to fish or cut bait, and you all know it. You can take the chance, and trust me. Or you can kill me."
The expressions on Baker's and Rojas's faces showed which option they'd pick. Martha's face remained impassive.
"If you kill me, you'd be breaking a semi-promise that Chloe gave me." Clark bowed toward the doppelganger of his best friend. "She said, right before we went in to take down Zod, that 'we don't backstab our allies.'"
Lois's face twisted.
"You can kill me. You have the power. But, as you start your new world, you'll know that you built it on a foundation of murder and betrayal. Is that what you want, underlying all your efforts?" Clark let that statement stand there, ringing in the now-silent room.
He looked at the figures facing him. Rojas remained bitter – no hope there. A.C. looked troubled. Chloe had a hint of a smile, and Clark dared hope that she was enough like his Chloe to support him. Lex and Martha's faces gave no hint of their underlying thoughts. Lois's expression matched A.C,'s - that of someone forced to face an uncomfortable truth. And Baker was an opposing bookend to Rojas – the two women obviously hated him and would like to see him dead.
He'd done what he could. Time to get out. "I'm going to walk around," he said. "Let me know when you decide."
Lex was impassive, Martha indignant, Lois surprised, and Chloe amused as Clark turned his back to them. Carefully avoiding his soldier guard, he strode briskly to the door. He carefully opened the door, stepped out, and just as carefully, closed it behind him.
Clark hadn't gotten a few steps away from the door when it slammed open and his minder burst out.
"Hey! Where do you think you're going?" The fit young man – Clark suspected he was an ex-Marine – hoisted his gun, then thought better of it. As he advanced on Clark, the kryptonite in his belt pack began glowing with more intensity.
Clark felt his knees tremble and the nausea begin. "Nowhere, right now," he managed to choke out. He collapsed on the floor, managing to work his way nearer to the door as he fell. "Please…"
"You stay right there," his guard ordered, standing over him.
"Please….farther away," Clark managed to choke out as the deadly radiation robbed him of the strength to sit. He found himself falling over, lying on the dirty floor.
The soldier glared at him suspiciously, then, seeing Clark's incapacity, took a few steps away. Clark sighed at the lessening of the pain.
"If you try anything, I'll put this right on your heart," the soldier said evenly. His taut posture and general air of alertness marked him as one who, if not a professional, had lived through combat.
"I won't give you any trouble," Clark said wearily.
The soldier eyed him cautiously and moved a small distance away. Clark remained splayed on the floor for what seemed like a long time before he slowly worked himself back into a sitting position. He strained his ears. The kryptonite cuffs had robbed him of most of his powers, but extra-sensitive hearing remained.
"He's nuts!" Clark heard Alicia Baker saying. "You can't trust a Kryptonian."
"I think we can trust him," Chloe said, her voice muffled through the wall. "He can't lie worth a darn. I think he meant what he said."
"But what if he changes his mind?" his mother – no, in this reality she was Martha Clark, the divorced, childless ex-wife of Jonathan Kent. "We wouldn't be able to stop him."
"I'm almost as strong as a Kryptonian," Clark heard Rojas chime in, "but I don't have the speed. Not to mention the heat vision. That's a danger on its own. You should know that, Chloe."
Clark flushed as he saw in his mind's eye the Chloe of this world, horribly burned by Brainiac.
"True," Chloe allowed. "But he did say he was raised here on Earth, as a human. And, you have to admit, he doesn't seem to have the arrogance that the other Kryptonians did."
"A good thing his cousin died in the attack," Baker growled. "We couldn't even pretend to trust her."
"She would have been put down right away," Lex agreed, "but the subject today is Kal-El." Clark could just see Lex giving that supercilious smile to Martha. "Or, as he calls himself, Clark Kent."
"Kal-El," Clark heard the alternate version of his mother say, in icy tones. "I don't think we should trust him. You can't trust a Kryptonian."
Lois interjected, sounding strangely hesitant. It was very unlike the Lois that Clark knew – that Lois was always positive, even when she didn't have a clue what she was talking about. "He did fight with us."
Clark was glad to see that this version of Lois appeared to be as loyal as the one in his own world. Lois might be annoying, pigheaded, stubborn, and belligerent, but if you were on her side then she'd fight for you.
"So did a lot of other people who didn't make it home," Rojas said. "How many people did we lose in the assault?"
"Over fifty," Lex said coolly.
"Those losses weren't all due to the Kryptonians," Chloe argued. "Most of that was fighting off other humans."
"Humans who turned collaborator," A. C. observed.
"That's right," Chloe said firmly. "You can't blame everything on the Kryptonians."
"Yes, I can," Baker said stubbornly. "They're why we're sitting here in an underground base, all of us wounded, on a planet that's an iceball."
"Supposedly it's going to warm up," Chloe said.
"If it's going to, it hasn't yet," said Martha skeptically.
"It took a while to cool down, too!" Chloe said hotly.
"Councillors." Lex, as ever, remained cool and urbane despite the fraying tempers around him. "Let's get back to the point. We are discussing what to do with Kal-El."
A.C. chipped in for the first time. "I think we should let him go."
Noises of protest, primarily from Baker, Rojas, and Martha.
"You have to admit that he fought with us," A.C. continued. "Like he said he would. And I agree with Chloe – the dude's a shit liar. His story's crazy, but I believe it. Or at least I believe he believes it." He chuckled, then turned serious. "But the man made a point."
"What?" Lois seemed to be the foil for A.C.
"He's right. Do we want to have a murder at the bottom of it all? Bro," and here Clark almost saw A.C. turning to face Lex, "I spend a lot of time in the ocean." The big man's tone was serious. "And sometimes when the storms come, good luck is all you have. Killing the dude after we promised not to would be major bad karma."
"Yes!" Lois said, happier. It was as if A.C. had put into words something she'd been feeling but couldn't stay.
More noises of protest.
Lex's voice again rose over the babble. "I'd like to hear your positions. One by one, please."
Rojas spoke first, and loudly. "We should kill him. Our world is owed vengeance."
"Point taken," Lex said. "A.C.?"
"I already said it, bro. Let him go. We need the good karma."
"Lois?"
"I think we should live up to what we said. We promised that we wouldn't backstab our allies. If we go back on that now, who would believe us in the future?"
"That promise wasn't widely known, Lois," Lex said, again in that cool voice. "Most of the people in this camp would be only to happy to see Kal-El executed."
"But we would know," Lois persisted.
"Martha?"
A long silence. "We can't trust him," Clark heard his erstwhile mother say finally. "I admit it would be nice to have the Kryptonian powers on our side for a change. But we've learned to our sorrow that they'll betray us. It's too dangerous to let him go free."
Clark imagined he could see heads nodding.
"Baker?" Lex asked.
"Kill him," Alicia said. "I agree with Andrea. We need revenge for how they've raped our world. Promises mean nothing."
"His promises or ours?" Clark heard Chloe ask sharply. "I submit to you that our word does mean something. He promised to help us and he did. Now we have to do what we promised."
"We didn't promise to let him pillage. We didn't promise to let him finish off the conquering. He knows where we are now. He knows we're the biggest cell of the Resistance left." Clark heard his mother's taut words. "If we let him go, what chance do we have? We lost so many, spent so much, on the assault…."
"Which we won. Zod and his henchmen are defeated," Chloe said firmly. "Earth is back in our grasp." She took a deep breath. "I'm with A.C. I believe his story. I believe we can trust him." A small laugh. "Heck, if Martha Clark here really did raise him, he'd have to be a good guy."
A chuckle from Lex. Clark listened for Martha but there was nothing.
Chloe finished. "We should agree to his deal. Put him to work using his powers to fix what's broken. Let him go free."
More impassioned argument.
Lex slapped his hand down on the table. "I have the deciding vote here, it seems." He waited till he had everyone's attention. "You've all made some good points." That was Lex, lulling everyone in until he swooped in for the kill, Clark thought.
"If it's revenge you're looking for, I'll point out that we did kill the Gang of Three," Lex said. "And don't forget, there are plenty of collaborators that need dealing with."
That had an ominous sound, Clark thought.
"I agree with Chloe that this Kal-El can't lie worth a damn," Lex said. "She's an excellent judge of that. And he has been polite and compliant all the way through."
"Because we've been holding kryptonite on him," Rojas muttered. Clark managed to hear it and he felt a little thrill. Was he becoming accustomed to the low-grade kryptonite exposure? Thinking of it, he didn't feel quite as weak.
"Nonetheless, this is an unparalleled opportunity. An alien, raised as a human – if you believe him, which, oddly enough, I do. Willing to work with us. We can study him, find out what he's capable of doing."
"We know what Kryptonians are capable of doing," Martha said darkly. "Lex, it's too dangerous to trust him."
A pause. "But if we had assurances?" Lex said.
"Hey!" The voice rang painfully on Clark's extended hearing. He flinched. "Get up!"
It was his erstwhile guard, apparently tired of standing around in a hallway guarding a collapsed, handcuffed prisoner. His face indicated he wasn't going to take any postponements.
"OK, OK," Clark said. "Just don't get too close to me with that rock." It really sucked, having basically everyone on Earth (everyone left, anyway) know his secret, and know that meteor rock incapacitated him. If he ever got back to his own world (a dream looking progressively more remote) he had to give serious consideration to developing a strategy to make sure his secret didn't get out.
The guard fumbled with the kryptonite, and Clark suddenly felt a relief from the constant pain. He turned to see that the guard had set the kryptonite in some sort of case – it must have been lead-lined. The guard approached him, and this time, Clark didn't collapse. The guard grabbed his arm and helped him get up.
"Back to your cell now." The guard's voice was emotionless. "This way."
As they marched back to his cell, Clark mused that he at least knew where everyone stood. For: A.C., Lois, and Chloe. On the fence: Lex. And against – his "mother", his ex-"wife" Alicia Baker, and the woman who had been the Angel of Vengeance in his old world, Andrea Rojas. Also against – every other Earthling on this base that knew of him.
The one thing that nagged the most at Clark was his knowledge of Lex. Lex always had a Plan B. In fact, he usually had Plans C through H. Clark was actually less afraid of being summarily executed – Lex would percolate some scheme through his twisty brain and figure out some way that Clark would end up working for him – than of what Lex had said. What did Lex mean by assurances?
