It didn't seem real. Not quite, anyway, until he had spoken the words to someone else. "They think I killed Richard," he'd said. He stood waiting as a stunned silence prevailed for an agonizingly long few seconds. Clark held his breath and the phone in anticipation of a reply. He had an irrational fear that his mother would suddenly shrink away in doubt once he told her.
Nothing could have been further from the truth. "Oh, Clark," Martha replied in the soft voice of someone struggling to fight back a sudden wave of tears. "Who would do something like that to you?"
"The person you'd expect," Clark replied, glancing briefly over his shoulder at the guard who was staring at him with hawkish eyes as he spoke on the jailhouse phone. This wasn't exactly the best place for Clark to speak openly about Lex Luthor, but he trusted his mother's practiced ability to understand the unspoken message.
When Martha spoke again, her voice had a new fearful edge to it, a slight trembling as if she were afraid to ask the next question. "But why would he come after you, Clark?" She let his name hang in the air, the meaning of her question clear.
His stomach lurched just thinking about the reason why and all the implications. Clark pulled the mouthpiece of the phone close. His lips parted, but his voice faltered for a moment. He shut his eyes and said softly, "He knows, Mom."
There was a beat. A silence on the other end as if all the air had been sucked out of the room. "Knows?" the reply came through the line like an exhalation from a sucker punch. Martha's voice trembled with panic. "Clark, son… oh my word," she began to stammer with hysteria, and Clark didn't blame her for it. "You have to get out of there."
Despite the circumstances, amazingly, her concern brought a small, unexpected smile to Clark's lips. Her worrying was oddly comforting. "Mom, I'm ok," he replied gently, warmed by the thought of her indelible sense of protectiveness. Where others saw an unbeatable hero, she always saw her child, the boy she still felt the need to look out for. Her love was one of the few things that had not changed in his absence.
"I'm getting a lawyer," Clark continued, "and I'm going to figure out how to get out of this." He hadn't bothered to tell her all the evidence they had stacked up. Strangely, it made him feel guilty to think of, even though there wasn't a shred of truth to most of it. "But mom," he said, "I'm worried about you."
It took a moment for his mother to understand his meaning. "You think he might…?" she sounded skeptical, but just hearing the possibility voiced made Clark tense up. Luthor wasn't finished yet, of that he could be sure. And as much as Clark didn't want to think about the darkest possibilities for what Luthor had planned, he knew those were exactly the kinds of things Lex would be most likely to do.
"I don't know what he's planning," Clark said slowly, "but there's a reason he went through all this trouble to put me in here. That's why I had to call you now- you have to get out of Smallville. Just to be safe."
Martha sounded shaken, but her stolid spirit gave her voice a stubborn edge. "All right, Clark," she said. "I'll take the first flight out of Kansas City tomorrow, to wherever you think I should go."
"No," he replied immediately. "You can't wait that long and you shouldn't risk traveling that far. You have to get someplace safe right away."
"I'm going to see you," Martha stated firmly, "I'm not letting him scare me away."
"Mom, please," Clark urged desperately, "listen to me. This isn't a purse snatcher or even a normal murderer. He's extremely dangerous. You know how many times he's gotten close to killing me." He was sure she hadn't forgotten his near-death experience only a month before. It would be worlds easier for Luthor to find Martha. Clark could just imagine the kind of sick pleasure it would give Lex to use his mother as some kind of bargaining chip to help get whatever it was he wanted out of him. The thought made Clark seethe. He wasn't going to let that happen.
"I guess you'd know better than I would," Martha conceded. "But where do you think I should go?"
"Do you still keep in touch with Ray Caldwell?"
"Yes," Martha replied. "I just saw him Saturday at the Farmer's Market."
"Kent," the guard behind Clark suddenly and sharply called out. Clark tried to pretend he hadn't heard, but the guard stepped up and pressed his nightstick firmly into the small of his back. The guard moved around to his side and sneered into Clark's ear. "Look, scumbag, when I take the trouble to call you by name, you answer me."
"Clark?" Martha inquired from the other end of the line.
"I'm sorry," Clark apologized to the man, not wanting more trouble than he already had.
"Not as sorry as you'll be if you don't get off that damn phone," the guard spat. "Your time's up and your little lawyer's here to see you."
"Uh," Clark stammered, holding up a finger. "Just a minute." He quickly brought the phone back up to his mouth. The guard continued staring at him angrily, and Clark tried to avoid eye-contact with him as he spoke. "Mom?"
"What's going on?" she asked nervously.
"Nothing." He remembered where he had been and continued urgently, "Get Ray to take you in his crop plane up to Topeka. There's a high security police force there since it's the capital. Explain that you need police protection. Explain my situation."
Martha hesitated, but gave in. "I'll be fine, don't you worry." She sounded wary, but still managed to be more concerned about him than herself. Once again, Clark was amazed by her selflessness. "Promise me you'll look out for yourself, too, Clark."
Clark smiled, half touched and half pained. "I will, Mom." He wasn't a bit worried about himself, but for her sake, he would try to be careful. For all their sakes. Whatever else Luthor was planning, he needed to be there ready to stop it. No matter what it took. "Now go, right away."
"I will." She paused a moment to draw a breath. "I love you, Son."
She always spoke those words to him, but somehow they seemed so much more important now. Clark recalled her repeated proclamations that he was never alone. Once again, he realized how important she was to him. "I lo-"
A large hand clanged down hard on the receiver switch, cutting Clark off. He looked over, dumbstruck, to see the guard sneering at him.
"Enough time with your mommy," the guard spat out with a derisive smirk. "Come on." He pulled Clark away from the phone so suddenly that he dropped the receiver. The piercing note of the dial tone droned on as the phone clanged into the wall then twisted precariously at the end of the cord.
