Nascence -- Chapter Two

"Mr. and Mrs. Kent. I'm Dr. Dilys Chase, one of Mr. Luthor's employees." The words rattled out reasonably like how Dilys had practiced them, over and over in the privacy of her mind on their journey to the Kent farm. She was not usually one for titles, but if ever there was a time when she needed every ounce of credibility she could milk, this was it.

The ruggedly handsome farmer smiled, a polite gesture and exactly no more. Martha Kent's greeting was a tad more warm, but she remained in the crook of her husband's arm and seemed content to let him take the lead. Clark stood a little ways between Dilys and his parents, looking like he was one neuron away from shuffling his feet. A full three quarters of all outcomes she imagined involved something like "sorry, but this is really somebody else's problem." They did not trust her, and one-and-a-half of the threesome fully distrusted Lex.

Dilys could not help throwing anxious little glances out of the corner of her eye to where Lex Luthor sat -- sprawled, rather -- in the backseat of her tan-colored car (tan is good for dust concealment; she must consider a paper about that some day). She had removed the keys from the ignition, and was standing a scant foot away, but did not put it past him to be capable of hot-wiring and hijacking should he so take fancy. Still, the man seemed placid enough for the moment, head lolled back, throat exposed, with the occasional mumble and laugh to himself. Within Dilys' vast inexperience of such matters she would rate his behavior as drunk. She thought, with no pretense to sufficient knowledge, that hallucinogens plus adrenaline equals some simile of intoxication.

Jonathan cleared his throat, and exchanged another uneasy glance with his son. Or, he would have if the latter had not been staring fearfully at the two non-Kents. Instead his glance merely flickered for a moment over the teenager before gracing her again. "Well, Dr. Chase, about Lex's... condition..." He seemed to expect her to continue.

"Oh," Dilys fumbled a little, trying to pin down at least one or two of the many thoughts zipping about her brain. "I'm not a doctor. Medical doctor, that is. I mean, I have a PhD. in physics. Just one of the LexCorp lab rats. And, uh, please call me Dilys."

Jonathan did not appear significantly less suspicious. "Dilys," he humored her, then continued with the bluntness of conviction, "Lex needs professional help."

"Dad, I don't think we can trust Lionel Luthor in this. He's probably the one who had Lex drugged in the first place."

Dilys took a deep breath. "Unfortunately I have to agree with your son, Mr. Kent. Lex believes that his father is, uh, trying to silence him."

From the hard look in Jonathan's eyes, she surmised that the young Luthor was not high on his list of favorite persons. "Lex is suffering from paranoid delusions," he said firmly. "His actions have already put Lana in intensive care. We can't risk--"

"I'm not asking you to shelter him, Mr. Kent. It wouldn't be safe for anybody, least of all Lex." She tried another breath. It was as un-fortifying as the last, despite doing a fine job along the way of hyperventilation. The paths before her constricted, side-lanes dwindling to brittle twigs that snapped and stripped off the main branch as she uttered her decision. "We're going to have to go away for a few days, until the drugs work out of his system."

The enormity of what she heard herself suggesting boggled Dilys. Going on the run with one semi-coherent and fully dangerous Lex Luthor. Caretaker: Dilys Chase, non-athlete, non-worldly, pretty much non-anything except single-minded scientist and recently occasional hacker. The landscape of consequences whirled dizzyingly, and she had to tightly grip the branch she had climbed out on to stop from toppling into the abyss.

"You couldn't possibly take care of Lex on your own, Dilys," Jonathan reinforced her doubts. "He's been known to get violent--"

"I won't hurt D. She's my friend."

Four pairs of eyes shot immediately towards the man behind the car window. An alarmingly large smile graced his face.

"I know you won't, L," Dilys returned softly. There was definitely something peculiar about how Lex was staring at her, a look she had never seen and for which no amount of thinking could not develop an analogy. A blush threatened when she recalled that they had company. "Do you know a place where we could hide out for a few days?"

Lex shut his eyes, then slammed a hand into the car door. She couldn't help the jump, but hoped that the pounding of her heart remained safely within her privacy. "Can't trust anyone!" he bellowed with abrupt fury. "Dad can and has probably bought out every last damned soul on this planet."

Dilys neither groaned nor stomped her foot, but it was a close call. She ran her finger over the edge of the car window, worrying the dark rubber lining. More details bombarded her mind, fading mercifully to background when she ran through some focusing exercises. It had been a long time since she'd had to consciously do such a thing. "Fine. Okay. When in doubt, improvise--"

In a flash that nobody anticipated, Lex's hand shot out and clamped about her wrist. His eyes stared at her with cutting mistrust, both bloodshot and storm-blue. "How do I know I can trust you? How do I know my father hasn't gotten to you as well?"

Her wrist hurt. "Oh, of course!" she found her lips exclaiming of their own accord. "How could I possibly have forgotten to mention that Luthor senior has had me cased since day one, with promises of bigger and shinier toys than Luthor junior can provide? Want to know the real secret though? Actually I'm undercover FBI, and have been working for half a decade to uncover the grand Luthor plan for world domination."

A choked sound made her turn from glaring at the disheveled man in the car to the family outside. Martha and Jonathan Kent were exchanging a glance, apparently trying to decide which of their unwanted visitors held more shares of the stock called insanity. Clark Kent darted glances all around at what must have been dizzying pace, though one should never assume that maybe-non-humans were susceptible to dizzy. The sound may have been the work of any of them. Dilys' swan-song was a spectacular rendition of crimson.

The young billionaire's laugh tolled like bells in the quiet country day. Clark seemed bemused but desperately optimistic -- laughter heralded good things, right? Jonathan and Martha looked more anxious by the minute.

Dilys sighed. She missed the comfort of her daily routine, to work, back from work, sleep, insomnia, sleep. It was about the time of day when Lex usually showed up at her office if he was in town, armed with paperwork and lunch.

At the end of that first week, one of the most awkward in her life, Dilys decides that there should be an "adequate working conditions" clause to her contract.

"I assure you Mr. Luthor, breathing down my neck -- or across the table, as it is -- will not increase my productivity. Haven't you heard that even in quantum physics, watched pots don't boil? Well, extremely nervous watched pots--"

A half-sided smile curls his lips as he leans back and studies her. A trick of lighting has his eyes a-gleam like blue diamond. His casual, almost lazy pose highlights the cricks her back has accrued from a stiffly upright posture. "And I assure you Ms. Chase," he interrupts, "that my incentives for being here have nothing to do with your job performance. Let's just put this down as an experiment in space-sharing, shall we?"

Lex Luthor is a question mark with a collar and tie on it, but Dilys does not need all her brain cells to deduce that it is no request, despite the phrasing.

Years later, why her boss and the heir to the Luthor empire chose to camp out in her (admittedly much-too spacious) office eluded her still. Perhaps he felt that her... condition required monitoring. It was, embarrassingly and frustratingly, true enough.

A rough shake of her arm divorced memory from reality. Though feverish, Lex's gaze was as piercing as ever, his diction as cutting. "Now's the time for action, not dreamery, Ms. Chase."

"Of, of course, yes." Dilys picked at the most promising thread. "Clark, would you, perhaps Lex could borrow a few day's worth of clothes? I'll stop by my place to grab other necessities, but it's probably not the best time to raid the castle for Lex's things right now."

"Sure--"

"Actually," Martha cut in, "I'll go pack some of Jonathan's things. I'm sure they'll fit much better, and Jonathan doesn't mind."

"Sure." This from Jonathan Kent, who nevertheless looked rather like he did mind, thank-you-very-much.

"Listen," Clark spoke into the silence after his mother left. "About what you saw..."

"Saw?" Jonathan's voice was definitely, guardedly hostile.

"That was some adoption agency you went to, Mr. Kent," Lex piped up. "So far Clark has survived being run into by two speeding cars, and pulled one apart with his bare hands. I'd like to know what the other kids can do. You could try to tell me it's just from all this healthy farm living, but that would have to be a farm on some other planet."

Father and son exchanged a long look. Clark's expression was sheepish. Jonathan's was the wrong side of thundery.

"I must know how you defy the laws of inertia, Clark," Dilys eagerly prattled. "Why weren't you pushed from the spot by the impact? And even if your body is impervious to harm, why weren't your clothes shredded? I'm more inclined to think that your body generates some sort of protective field; come to think of it, that would explain quite a few other things. And the speeding! It seems to be some sort of time dilation effect, assuming that relativity is still an applicable theory." She frowned at another detail, not noticing that her audience, bar one transfixed Lex Luthor, were growing ever more agitated. "Were you hurt? I don't understand how that could have happened, but you still have some blood on your face."

"Morgan Edge punched him with a meteorite rosary," Lex revealed, completely out-of-character even before he punctuated the statement with a wondering chuckle.

"Meteorites? They harm Clark?" The strands of her thought were almost visible to Dilys, some twining together, reinforced to glowing certitude, others neglected until they faded from existence. "Fascinating. They do emit some very strange radiation, I wonder if--"

"Ms. Chase, Dilys!" Jonathan Kent was livid. "This is my son you're babbling on about like some kind of, of--" His jaw clenched, hard, and he had advanced until blatantly in her personal space. She took an instinctive step back, only to have her back connect with the car. "You keep your nose and everything else out of our business, or--"

"Dad!"

"Jonathan!"

Lex rose abruptly and thrust his upper body halfway through the open window, hands grabbing the front of Jonathan's shirt. "Don't you--"

Dilys thought it wise to intervene before the farmer added a few more bruises to her employer's already spectacular collection. Physically she interposed herself between the two men -- or at least that was the intention. The execution resulted in her plastered over the car door, preempting (she hoped) any bright ideas by Lex of exiting, and as far away from the irate Kent as she could get.

"I apologize, Mr. Kent, and now is obviously not the time to have this debate. We should get going."

He glared at her for another minute. It would be wrong to say that Dilys had never had someone look at her with such a degree of antipathy, because she had and worse, but it had been many years since she had taken notice.

"Fine. Get out of my land. But just you remember that there's no way in hell I'm going to let anything happen to my family."

"Jonathan!" Martha's disapproval was obvious and she came to stand between her husband and Dilys. "This is enough for one day. Now you and Lex just try to remain civil for a minute and let me talk to Dilys, okay?"

It was not a question. The older woman took Dilys by the elbow, walking several feet away so they could speak in undertones. Her eyes were concerned, motherly. "Are you sure you want to do this, honey?"

"Seeing possibilities is my curse, Mrs. Kent. I am almost never sure of anything."

"We should take Lex to a hospital. He needs psychiatric care."

The young woman shook her head. "Lex has more issues than the Daily Planet, but he's only slightly less sane than the rest of the world." Her lips quirked in a brief moment of genuine humor, then rapidly flattened. "I can't let Lionel Luthor get his hands on Lex, not when he is so... vulnerable."

"You care a lot for him, don't you?" Martha's voice softened with sympathy. "Are you two...?"

"Us?" Dilys was confused, then laughed from the sheer absurdity of the concept. The sound may have been one iota hysterical, but she had always believed in the power of denial. "No, nothing like that. I really am just an employee. And I, well, I've sort of grown used to his company."

A gentle hand clasped her shoulder. She was usually not a fan of bodily contact, but Martha made it feel comfortable. "But will you be able to handle staying alone with a man you don't know that much about? You must consider that Lex is not in, ah, full control of himself."

Dilys wrapped her arms around her waist, but dredged up a smile that was just a tad crooked. "Oh? Oh! Er, that is the last thing on my worry list, don't worry! I happen to be safely the opposite of Lex Luthor's 'type'."

"Killer brunettes?"

The smile graduated into a grin, and Dilys was surprised by a jolt of liking for this hidden facet of the sweet-mannered Martha Kent. "Something like that," she acknowledged. "Though he usually harvests them when they're only mildly sociopathic."

Martha sighed, but gave a half-smile and her shoulder a squeeze before disengaging.

"Thank you for your concern, Mrs. Kent," Dilys said, and meant it, "but don't worry too much. Guess this is as good a time as any to practice those billionaire-sitting skills. Besides, there are any number of proverbs about necessity and invention."


"I should have gone with him, Chloe."

Deciding that the statement did not require a reply any more than the dozen variations-on-theme she had been subjected to in the past hour, Chloe Sullivan, proto-journalist, continued tapping and scrolling on the Smallville Torch computer.

"I mean, we don't even know who this Dilys Chase really is. I've never heard Lex mention her, but it was like, well, like they knew each other quite well. Yet she told mom that she's 'just an employee'. And even if she is who she says she is, she's just going to get hurt or worse. You know, well I know, how Lex gets when he's--"

"Aha!" Chloe swung around long enough to flash a triumphant grin that stopped her pacing friend in his literal tracks, then resumed scanning the contents of the computer monitor. "I think I have some tidbits that just might interest you, Clark Kent."

He was behind her shoulder so fast, she idly wondered if he was possessed of some kind of super-speed. She ran a guiding finger down the lines of text.

"Doctor Dilys Chase. Age twenty-three -- hmm, a couple of months younger than Lex, only. Joint PhD. in Physics and Mathematics, Princeton University." She shook her head, the spiky tips of her hair brushing across her neck. "This gal has an I.Q. of one hundred and ninety-two, Clark. She may be one of Lex's little helpers, but I highly doubt if Dr. Chase has ever been 'just' anything."

"So she's a genius? She was going on about-- uh, well, she was giving us a whole science speech for a while. Ahem. Nothing relevant."

Chloe's eyes narrowed, but she was well acquainted with the Clark Wall of Mystery. The way around it had always been to let him think he'd gotten away with it, then spring a casual mention or two later in the conversation. "She's not just a genius, Clark," the reporter expounded, waving a hand for emphasis. "Lex has genius-level I.Q. One hundred ninety-two is pretty close to being off the charts."

"So you think she's working for Lex on some top-secret project?"

"Do you even have to ask? And the very fact that she's here in Smallville narrows it down pretty much, doncha think?"

"I don't know, Chloe. There hasn't been very many secret high-tech labs around here."

"I hope you don't need a dictionary for the definition of 'secret', Clark. After all, you are my Editor-in-chief."

He made a disgruntled sound. "Alright, alright. What else have you got?"

Chloe frowned at the screen, which sported a photo of the topic of conversation. It was a typically unflattering driver's license shot, but even so it was clear that Dilys Chase was only ordinary as far as appearances went. Brown hair with a tint of gold, caught in a strict ponytail. Brown eyes, straight mouth. High cheekbones, square-ish jaw. She wore no visible makeup, and in her plain cardigan could have melted into the Smallville High "anonymous" crowd without the slightest effort.

"Hmm. Lex sure wasted no time hiring her. Publications by one D. Chase stopped right after her thesis defense, a few months after Lex took up management of the Smallville plant, actually. Ten bucks says that it's when he whisked her into some version of Level 3, never to be seen by the academic community ever again."

"That's it? I don't know, there has to be more to the story. I mean, they had nicknames for each other and everything."

Chloe's brows rose above the level of her bangs. "Well, it can't have been during highschool. Lex went to Excelsior Academy, an all-boys private school. Dr. Chase went to Quint Gardens Girl's School on a scholarship. They're both these posh places the bluest of bluebloods send their children to, but I can't imagine young, playboy Lex Luthor slipping notes across the fence to our girl geek-wonder, can you? Plus she graduated early, perfect attendance."

"Maybe they got into contact during university."

"Maybe. But between finishing undergrad work in under two years, and getting two PhDs in the remaining, I don't see how she could've stepped one foot out of her room unless it's to go to class."

Clark ran a hand through his already-tousled hair. Before he could come up with another hypothesis, Chloe made a sound of intrigue that had him peering some more over her shoulder. "Chloe? Do I want to know how you got a hold of Dr. Chase's psychological profile?"

She grinned toothily and quipped, "Don't ask me no questions." Refocusing, she verbalized the highlights. "Reclusive, lack of significant social connections. Hmm, must be a Mensa prerequisite... though there are some in-triiig-uing hints about neglect during the 'formative years'. And here -- wow. This is one gal who shouldn't have been issued a driver's license. Wonder if our Mr. Luthor had a hand in that."

"'Dissociative episodes'?" Clark read.

"Sounds like the good doctor spaces out once in a while."

"I knew I should have gone with Lex!"

Chloe blew a chunk of hair out of her eyes, and targeted him with a look of pure exasperation. "While we all know you have this need to be everybody's hero, Clark Kent, I have to go with Dr. Chase on this one. I mean, hello? What do you think Lionel Luthor would have done to your parents if you'd gone incommunicado the same time Luthor junior was at large? You might as well put a banner up on the school compound saying 'Clark Kent, aid and abetting Lex Luthor'."

"How do you know Lionel won't figure out the same about Dr. Chase?"

"I don't, but for his own no doubt nefarious reasons Lex seems to have kept their 'relationship', whatever species of creature that may be, pretty hush-hush. He also gave Dr. Chase a work contract that makes me green with envy. Basically she can work at any LexCorp lab, at home, or in the middle of a cornfield if that takes her fancy. She's been logging regular hours, location unknown, but I'll say it won't raise very many eyebrows if she doesn't show up for a few days."

"Chloe, none of this is making me feel any better about what's going on with her and Lex."

Chloe shrugged. "With Lex Luthor, who knows? Let's face it, Smallville's resident rich-and-famous runs in a pretty weird cabal. He's even friends with Clark Kent, farmboy extraordi-- hey, hands off the hair!"

Clark grinned, but retracted his arm only after ruffling the blond mop the way he knew was guaranteed to irk its owner.