Author: Maddie
Rating: PG
Pairing: none
Challenge response: to use the following words in a story: wish - memory - glow - fall
Feedback: Always welcome
Disclaimer: The characters and setting belong to the WB, but the plot belongs to me.
Author's Notes: Based on comments Lex made during "Shimmer" I am assuming he as in his late teens when his mother died. Thanks to Ras for beta reading. :) This is my first Smallville fic. Feedback welcome.
Summary: A young Lex says good-bye to someone he loved
An End To Tears
Hushed silence filled the entryway. Its only occupant stood listening as freezing rain pelted the tall windows behind him. He had arrived early, not because there was a need, but because he wanted to be alone. Shrugging out of his dripping overcoat he tossed it over a hanger. The building was eerily quiet and his footsteps made no sound on the plush carpet. He followed the trail of flowers that started at the foyer and ran the length of the hallway on both sides. Ignoring the seemingly endless number of baskets he walked slowly to the large room at the end of the corridor. Stopping outside the door he suddenly found himself immobilized by the wrenching reality of where he was. The room seemed the size of a football field. Filled with chairs it was obviously the source of the floral wellspring that had overflowed into the hallway. Such a grand display like everything Luthor was grand. He had the all consuming desire to turn and run, but he could not move. He was here early, he reminded himself, because he wanted some time before his father arrived, and with him an entourage of mourners.
Lex Luthor stepped into the room and walked slowly toward the far end. The subdued lighting cast an ethereal halo around the casket at the end of the parlor. Made of mahogany, richly embellished with bronze, the wood seemed to glow with its own inner light. Half afraid to move closer he forced himself to walk the length of the room to where she now lay. There was a choking ache in his throat as he neared the casket. Her casket. His mother. For a minute he was startled by her calm appearance. It had been so long since she had lived without pain that it seemed surreal to see her now, as though merely asleep in her satin lined coffin. His father had picked out a pale blue silk dress, on her ring finger an enormous diamond. Lex could not help the bitter smile that crept onto his lips. Only he knew how much his mother despised such an ostentatious show of their abundant wealth.
He stopped within a foot of the casket. Slowly, he ran his left hand along the warm, rich mahogany. Mother would have liked the choice, he thought. She loved wood and insisted it be used to decorate many of the rooms in the Smallville house, even though Lionel preferred the sleek, efficient, ultramodern decor of their Metropolis mansion - steel and marble - cold and heartless like his father. He paused as the light caught the watch he now wore on his left wrist. Her last gift to him. His last real memory before she began to slip away. She had laughed, a genuine laugh, full of the life he cherished in her. The life that made his bearable. She had told him the watch was a belated birthday gift because she had been too sick to help him celebrate his sixteenth birthday. He knew differently now. He closed his eyes trying to recall how she looked and how she sounded and struggling to contain the overwhelming flood of grief that threatened to engulf him. Luthors do not indulge in public shows of emotion. You must remember that, Lex. Lex opened his eyes, angered that his father's words came to mind, not his mother's. Unless it makes good PR, Dad, he thought adding his own aside.
He shook his head to rid himself of Lionel's words. There is no public here now, Father, he thought. He had the rest of his lifetime to deal with Lionel Luthor. This moment was his mother's. Glancing again at the watch, the gold of the face, fashioned from a French franc, he now understood that it was intended as a reminder. Mother did not pretend, not to her only son. She knew she would never live to see him escape from under his father's wing, yet she wanted to be with him when he did. Her final wish was that he remember her when times got difficult, when Father became difficult. She hoped he would seek her guidance if only symbolically, and temper his rebellious anger with her conscience. Above all, she wanted to share in his glory, to be with him when he came into his own, as Napoleon's mother had shared in his triumph in absentia.
Reaching into the inside pocket of his suit coat, Lex withdrew an old photograph, taken in an earlier, happier time. A laughing red haired child, five years old at most, splashing in the surf with a slender woman, her hair the color of honey, touched with a hint of red. Lex fingered the photograph, reluctant to part with it. He had so few personal momentos from his mother that his father did not consider 'part of her estate' and therefore subject to his disposal. A few photographs, the watch, a small iron box she had given him. Running his finger over the photo one last time, he carefully tucked the photo inside the silken sheet that draped his mother's cold body. He had hoped to place it near her heart, but was reluctant to touch her now. Not wanting to remember her stiff and lifeless. Father would not approve of the gesture. To hell with you, Dad, Lex thought rebelliously.
Somewhere in the cavernous funeral home, a clock chimed, a low tolling note. Lex unconsciously counted the strokes. Six o'clock. Calling hours were from seven until ten. Lionel would soon be here. Lex cringed at the thought of spending three hours on public display. This would be the kind of media event Lionel loved to work. Despite the miserable weather, he expected droves of reporters to follow his father. Their goal was to capture on film the world's richest man and his only son in their hour of grief. Lex shuddered at the thought. Three hours of his father, pretending to care. Three hours of his father's stiff upper lip. He wondered, at what point in his life, Lionel stopped loving his wife and son and started pretending for the media.
Lex tried to crush the bitter well of rejection that accompanied any thought of his father. Instead, focused on the woman who had tried so hard to protect him from Lionel's heartlessness, who had tempered the hurt with an abundance of love, and who often placed herself between her warring husband and only son. Who will stand between us now, Mother? Lex thought sadly. Reaching out he placed his cold hand over her colder one, covering the diamond that looked so out of place on her finger. Who will love me now? The emptiness engulfed him, until he thought his heart would burst with the agony of it. He saw the hot tear fall upon his hand before he realized he had begun to cry. And for the briefest moment he gave in to his grief allowing the tears to fall freely, because he knew that after this moment there would be no tears. Never again would he be allowed the indulgence.
The sound of voices finally penetrated his mindless sorrow. People were talking in the flower filled hallway. Scrubbing the tears from his face, he bent and gently kissed his mother's forehead. "Good-bye, Mother," he whispered. Now that you're gone, nothing will ever be the same again. He stood up, straightened his suit coat, patted his mother's hand one more time, and composed himself because he knew it was time for the show to begin.
"Lex," his father's stern voice came from behind him. "Why did you sneak away so early? We were expected to arrive together."
Lex took a deep breath, made his face blank, then turned to face his father, his covey of reporters, and the rest of his life, alone.
End