A/N: While some themes are shared, this is NOT part of the If she looked over universe. I'm posting this because SeaKat requested it in a review for ISLO awhile back.
This is a two-shot extension of episode 5x9, Lexmas. It sort of takes the form of a letter from Lilian Luthor to her son, telling him what would have happened after Lana's death (I never understood why she would show him the darkest moment of his "good" future, in order to convince him to aspire to that future . . .)
One thing, though: I technically wrote this before I ever watched the episode, on the basis of an incomplete plot summary, so I didn't realize Lex had children in the vision. So this is a bit AU, because it assumes Lana and Lex never had kids. I also assumed that Lex's job was heading up a charitable non-profit of some sort. However, all other events in all previous episodes are assumed to have occurred as in canon.
Chapter 1
You're not the one to make arrangements for Lana's funeral. The shock numbs you. You write checks to people who can make arrangements for you, and you can't even feel the pen in your hand.
You don't speak at her funeral except in monosyllabic response to the dozens of people who put their arms around you and express their sympathy. You keep thinking you should weep for her, and your friends think the same thing—you can see it in their swimming eyes—but the tears won't come.
After the ceremony, you find yourself home alone. It's the smallest house you've ever lived in, but it's never been so enormous. Cavernous. You can't make your way back to your bedroom, can't stand to face it alone, so you sit down on the couch. Numb. Silence envelops you, and the only thing you can feel is the time pass, like molasses.
You doze off, a little, and there are visitors in and out of your tiny enormous house the next day. Clark and Chloe try to talk with you, even though you don't have much to say. Martha and Jonathan sit with you for an hour, mostly quiet. Jonathan puts his hand on your back and Martha holds your hand, but even then the tears won't come. Friends drop by: some bring flowers, some bring casseroles, some bring words and prayers, all bring open arms. Some part of your subconsciousness is aware that you'll appreciate them all some day. Today they're all just noise.
Noise, on and off, for forty-eight hours. Then, for twenty-four, there's only the occasional buzzing of your phone to interrupt the silence. You never check the screen.
When Clark and Chloe come the next evening to see why you haven't answered the texts, and they ask the last time you've eaten, you don't have an answer. You think you've gotten up a few times to use the bathroom; you're pretty sure Martha brought you a glass of water, since it's still half full on the table; you've been in and out of partial sleep, but you see Lana's face every time you close your eyes, and you don't want to. The concern in their eyes washes over you, but you can't feel it.
They bring you something to eat, place it right in front of you, and you can't eat. They don't leave until you've tried. You don't mean to, but you throw it up after they've gone. You've never been so sick in your life. The nausea doesn't hurt. Nothing hurts, and you wonder if that makes you a monster. Maybe you've always been a monster.
In the silence of the night, you try again. You can't get yourself to shower, but you give the cold food another try. You chew but can't swallow. You manage a little water. You try hard to cry, squeezing your eyes shut so the image of her face fills your mind, but the taut shell enveloping your thin skin won't budge. You feel nothing.
The next morning, Chloe comes by and makes you breakfast. It may as well be sewage, for all your nausea. She pushes you a little too hard to eat, and you snap. You shout choice insults at her until the tears that won't come to your eyes fill hers, and she slams the door on the way out.
Midday, Clark storms through your door. He yells at you, hard. You take it, silently, until somehow, your shell cracks. His anger sears your flesh, and all at once you can feel everything: pain like you've never experienced, not when all of your peers and friends rejected and tortured you as a child, not when Julian and I died in the same year and your father blamed you and beat you, not in your years and years of believing you'd never be loved. Hot tears spill from your eyes, and Clark's scolding cuts off mid-sentence as you drop to the couch and bury your face in your hands.
He sits with you. After a few minutes, you try to stop crying, and you can't. You can't cry hard enough, and you can't fight the violently shaking sobs. Clark asks if you'd like to be alone, and you can't even get the words out to lie and tell him you would. So he sits with you. When the sun goes down and all of your muscles are exhausted from weeping, but you still can't stop, he calls Chloe to tell her not to wait up. He hangs up, sits down, and puts a hand on your shoulder, and you look up to see his eyes shiny and overflowing, too. When you stand to pace, he stands to embrace you, and his tears wet your shoulder, too.
Chloe drops by and wakes you up in the morning with breakfast. Eyes swollen half shut from last night's tears, you apologize to her and eat without complaining. Your stomach hurts, but you manage to keep it down. She smiles; she's not angry.
But of course, she's worried, and she tells Clark's parents how worried she is about you, and they offer to let you stay with them for a little while until you can stand to be surrounded by so many memories. You turn them down, but you call them an hour later to see if the offer still stands. You convince yourself to shower before you head over.
Jonathan is out at work and Martha is washing dishes in the kitchen when you arrive. She stops to ask how you are, and for the first time in years, you speak your greatest fear: that your wife's death is your fault. You lament the futility of your fight to become worthy of anything but hatred and apathy. Martha tries to tell you it's not true, that you're not thinking straight, but the truth is you can't really hear her and you're not trying to. You tell her you're giving up: you'll live and die as you've always feared, alone and unloved.
Martha knows you're not listening to her, knows you don't want to. She raises her eyebrows and delivers a hard two-fingered tap to your left temple. The impact resonates in your skull, waking you up so you hear and never forget her next words:
"I love you. Jonathan loves you, your friends love you, Clark would die for you any day of the week. Most of the people who work for you love you, and all those people you've helped? They adore you and they haven't even met you."
The words burn—cauterizing, cleansing. You're trembling. She sighs, sets her palm on the side of your head, and gently strokes your temple with her thumb.
"With or without Lana," she says, "you might be the most loved man in this town."
"I don't deserve that," you manage to say.
She smiles. "You don't have to."
You shake so hard, she puts both arms around you. Just for a moment, soft light fills you, chasing back the deep darkness, loosening the grip of its claws around your soul. But the darkness isn't just in you: it's part of you, and it rages against the divide. You feel the truth you've always known: healing won't be all comfort and relief. At times it will be surgical, messy, maybe even bloody. You're terrified. You grip onto Martha so tight, you know you must be hurting her, but you can't help it. She doesn't let go until you do.
When you wake up the next morning after a full night of sleep, the grief is as overwhelming as ever, but your shame is gone. It takes a moment to recognize yourself in the mirror without it. You pull in a breath, and the air tastes different than it ever has.
You get up and help Martha around the house. You talk about Lana, and you spend a few minutes wetting her shoulder with your tears, but only a few.
It takes you another week to make your way back home, two weeks to smile—for just a moment, when Jonathan echoes Martha's sentiments—and a full month to visit your workplace. It's business as usual among your employees. Their highest priority has been keeping things running while giving you space, and they've done almost as well without you as with you. Two months after the funeral, you put on a suit, go to the office, and start chipping away at the backlog of emails and letters.
Friends mostly stop checking in after three months have passed, but Clark and Chloe were close with Lana, too, so they still come by at least once a week. They're still grieving, and they still want to talk about her. By now, so do you. For the most part, you save the tears for your pillow, but you've come to look forward to their visits for their own sake. You have some of the most honest conversations you've ever had with them, share things you've never said, and learn things you never knew. But you're not angry with Clark for having kept secrets from you, and you don't blame him—you're just happy to know them now.
The grief comes in waves. Some days drown you so the pain is worse than it was on that first day, and some days the grief leaves you alone altogether. You know you have people you could call on the bad days. Usually you don't, but you could, and that's all you need.
A/N: Part 2 of 2 coming soon. Reviews are appreciated!