Martha sat at the dining room table and stared blankly into the kitchen. This was the first time she'd been here in the month since Clark had vanished without a trace. Outside, she could hear the bustle of the men Oliver had hired for her to work the farm in Clark's absence. When she'd tried to protest, saying it wasn't necessary as she could make arrangements for the farm herself, he had insisted. "One last thing for you to worry about," he'd said.
A knock at the screen door and a quiet call of her name startled her from her thoughts and back into the present.
"Lionel, come in. I didn't know you were in Smallville."
Lionel Luthor stepped inside and gestured for her to stay sitting as he moved to sit across from her. "It was an impromptu trip. I heard you were here." He rested his hands on the table, leaning forward slightly. "Have you heard from Clark?"
"Not recently, no."
"Perhaps he's somewhere without a means to call home. Where did you say he was now?"
"Helsinki," she said, letting the lie fall from her lips without hesitation. "He'll be heading to Denmark next. I'm sure he'll call once he's there."
"I'm sure he will."
Martha let her eyes wander from his face for a moment, looking towards the stairs and then upwards to where her son's room lay empty and waiting for his return. Lionel watched her carefully as she turned back and smiled unconvincingly at him.
"I have a confession to make, Martha. I came here with an ulterior motive. I was hoping you would do me the honour of attending the Annual Gotham City Charity Event this coming Friday evening."
"Gotham City?"
"LuthorCorp has several business holdings there. I've always tried to make a point of attending. This year in particular I feel my presence is required to placate the local stockholders, what with the mess my son has gotten himself into."
"You don't seem too upset that Lex is being held under suspicion of Lana's murder."
"I know my son is innocent, Martha. Time and evidence will prove that; I have every confidence."
"Have you told Lex that?"
"My son knows where I stand on this matter."
"Are you sure, Lionel? Lex may have many talents, but mind reading isn't one of them." He had been on the news just two nights before, and Martha couldn't ever remember giving seen him look so lost. It was a face he'd never let the public see before. The tabloids had splashed the image all over their front pages and latched onto the idea that it was as good as an admission of guilt.
"Perhaps it could stand to be said aloud," Lionel conceded. "Now, will you allow me to show you off to the good people of Gotham?"
Despite her first guilt-ridden instinct to say no, Martha found herself smiling. "I'd be happy to."
o o o o o
Clark had tried screaming for answers at first, until the gas came and he woke up with a gag in his mouth. Struggling against the straps had also proved useless. They crossed his body at wrists and ankles, thighs, hips, chest, neck, and head. He'd pulled uselessly at them until his body ached down to his bones. They were leather on the outside, as far as Clark could tell, and reinforced with something solid on the inside. He couldn't be sure. Sensation was muted for him, and the room stayed dark whenever he was awake.
Most of Clark's time was spent unconscious. The green-tinted gas would filter into the room through vents in the ceiling, and when the kryptonite mixture reached his lungs, it burned until the darkness would creep in on him. Coming to an indeterminate amount of time later, Clark always tried in vain to catalogue his body, looking for changes. Instead of something new, he always felt only the same presence of numbed limbs that he felt when he first woke up in his prison.
It was hard to judge just how long he'd been there. The only way he marked the passage of time was by the gas sinking him into oblivion. There was no pattern he could discern; he didn't know if it came after a set length of time, and he didn't know how long it kept him under for.
He wasn't sure what was worse: not knowing how long he'd been held captive here, or not knowing what was being done to him while he slept.
He'd given up trying to figure out who had taken him. Somewhere in his head, his voice was screaming at him, telling him he knew and that he just had to remember. Clark spent a lot of his time trying to silence the voice; if he let himself think about it too long, he started to feel queasy.
For a while, he thought he had everything figured out. The people who held him captive (you know who they are! his mind screamed) had no apparent need to ask questions about who he was and where he came from. Which meant they already knew.
In fact, they didn't seem to need to ask questions at all, and now that he'd let that thought enter his mind, a whole new level of paranoia was opening itself up before him.
Squeezing his eyes shut against the barrage of questions now flooding him, Clark tried to turn his fragmented thoughts to something more bearable. He tried to think of how Chloe would be looking for him, and he wondered if she had called Oliver for help.
That led to panicked thoughts of whether or not Oliver would even help her given that he'd turned down the man's request to join his team.
Clark's mind was steadily turning into a dark and frightening place. Events he'd recalled with perfect clarity before were now horribly mutated. Lana's acceptance of his secret became a disgusted look hidden beneath a false expression of love. Digging the microchip out of Chloe's shoulder with his abilities twisted from saving her life to inflicting torture on his best friend against her will. His mother's use of kryptonite to stop the effects of Red K soon became a plot to hurt him, prevent him from being able to use his abilities ever again.
Tears were leaking silently from the corner of his eyes as the vents slid open overhead and the gas filled the room again. Clark sighed with relief when everything started to go foggy around him.
He didn't know if anyone was coming for him. He could only hope.
o o o o o
The orders came early Friday morning, brief and to the point. "Take off the gag."