*July 16, 2018*

Space travel came first. Mostly because Jor-El insisted that it was the first step and because he wouldn't answer any of Lex's questions regarding time travel until he had mastered warp drive first. So Lex and Jor-El worked hard for five years to get Lex's warp drive working. Lex left the university and started his own private aerospace company after the first two years. He needed the freedom that it gave him and he couldn't deal with the demands on his time at the university. At the end of their five years, they had a working ship large enough for two people that didn't need to be launched. It could easily take off from a runway at LuthorSpace.

Soon Lex's company was building ships for NASA and the human race was going places that they had never imagined they would reach in their lifetimes. It was truly exciting and Lex was right in the middle of it with Clark at his side.

Clark and Lex eventually started trying to contact the rest of Clark's people. They broadcast a number of messages in the language of Clark's home world on the subspace frequencies that Jor-El suggested. Nothing came of it for so long that Lex had almost forgotten about it until he turned on the news that morning and seen the alien ships on the screen.

He quickly made a recording of the newscast, then got Clark, and the two of them rushed over to see Jor-El. He gave them the worst possible news. It was what Lex had been dreading hearing since he had first seen the ships. These were the enemies of Clark's people, the Sengari. They must have been attracted by Lex and Clark's messages in Kryptonian and now they were there at Earth to see who had sent them.

"Shit," Lex swore loudly when he heard Jor-El's news.

"Yeah," Clark breathed.

"What do you think, Father?" Clark asked Jor-El.

"They've been attempting to communicate with us for the last 30 minutes. Luckily, very few people possess communication devices that can pick up the frequency they are transmitting on. They're here for Kal-El since he sent the message. They don't have a good track record with new space faring races, though," Jor-El supplied.

"They like to conquer first and ask questions later?" Clark asked wryly.

"Yes," Jor-El confirmed.

Lex could feel the blood draining from his face. "And we're still pretty young," he concluded with a nod. Although the two of them and Jor-El had tried to make sure that humanity would be able to defend itself if it needed to, their technology was still vastly inferior to a race that had managed to virtually destroy the Kryptonians.

"I need to talk to them," Clark insisted.

Lex didn't want to agree, but he had to. As much as he hated exposing Clark, he couldn't see any way around it. If Clark spoke to the Sengari, they would know who he was, but if he didn't speak to them then they might simply come looking for him. Lex didn't think that would be pretty and he knew Clark wouldn't be able to live with the consequences of that. Lex found that he didn't think he could live with that either.

Clark moved over to the console that would allow him to communicate with the alien ship. It had been specially designed by Jor-El and built by Lex's company. There were only a few of them in existence currently, but they were poised to take over the home telephone market as soon as building a portable model became cost-effective.

Clark tuned the receiver to the frequency Jor-El told him the aliens were transmitting on and almost immediately harsh words in the strange language that Lex still couldn't understand filled the large room. It went on for a while and then stopped and seemed to cycle back through to the start of the message. Clark looked scared and that only made Lex feel worse. He'd never meant to expose Clark to anything like this. He'd only wanted to know the secret of time travel and along the way had picked up this drive to reunite Clark with what was left of his race. It was a just and noble cause, or at least as just and noble as Lex was capable of taking on.

Clark started responding in the same language before he translated the message for Lex. Lex stepped forward and grabbed Clark's arm. "Clark," he hissed. "Tell me what they want."

Clark ignored him for a moment and finished saying what he was trying to communicate. Lex knew he couldn't stop his partner from doing the things that he really wanted to do, but Clark usually consulted with Lex before he made major decisions like this. Lex didn't like not being consulted, especially about something as potentially dangerous as this.

Clark turned and looked at Lex. "They said that they're looking for the one that sent the message and that if he's not presented to them that they will randomly attack until he shows himself."

Lex felt sick. "What?" he demanded. He couldn't believe this was happening. "What makes them think that you would give in to their demand?"

"We were an inherently noble people, Lex-Luthor," Jor-El said smoothly. After all these years, Lex still found it strange the way the man overlapped his names as if they were one. No amount of coaxing had convinced him to stick with just Lex. "The Sengari know that Clark would rather sacrifice himself than see anyone else on this planet hurt. They used this tactic against us many times in battle."

"Clark, what did you tell them?"

"I told them that I am Kal-El of Krypton and that it was I who sent the message," Clark said smoothly.

He drew himself up to his full height and Lex caught a glimpse of the man Clark would have been had his planet not been destroyed and he had stayed on Krypton. Jor-El had told Lex that Clark's family had been great leaders in their government and powerful men and women who had lead their people into battle many times. Lex didn't doubt it. Clark was magnificent when he was like this.

Lex nodded but didn't say anything. He wanted to insist that Clark shouldn't have revealed himself, but he had agreed to making contact with the aliens and it was really too late to protest now that Clark had already acted.

A light started blinking on the console. Clark looked down at it and nodded his head. "They are making contact directly with us," he informed Lex.

Clark reached out and pressed a button on the console and suddenly the screen filled with the image of another alien being. What surprised Lex the most was that he looked so human. He had discussed the Kryptonian's theory of a 'seed race' with Jor-El in the past, but Lex had never given it much credit. Now he was starting to understand why the theory was needed. Humans, Kryptonians, and Sengari were apparently almost indistinguishable from one another by appearance alone.

The alien started speaking in Kryptonian. Lex knew Clark was too busy to translate for him. He turned back to Jor-El and asked for help. The other man nodded and started quietly translating the conversation for Lex.

"...Hornam of the Sengari Republic. I am looking for the one named Kal-El who sent the message to the Kryptonian people."

"That is me," Clark answered.

"Kal-El, last son of Jor-El. You look much like your father," the alien man said. "You are to be arrested and tried for the crimes of your family against the Sengari Republic."

Clark blinked at that. It wasn't what he had been expecting at all. It wasn't what any of them had been expecting to hear, except perhaps Jor-El, although he had been suspiciously quiet about the whole issue of why the Sengari might have come looking for Clark.

"I will not be tried for events that I had no part in," Clark responded and Lex breathed a sigh of relief. Clark wasn't going to submit without a fight. It was reassuring.

"Under Sengari law, you can be held responsible for the actions of your family. We will have satisfaction for the crimes committed against us by your father and uncle. We are sending a ship to your location to retrieve you now. If you do not come willingly, we will take you by force."

"No," Lex insisted loudly.

"What did they do?" Clark demanded of the alien man.

"Your father developed an extremely powerful weapon that was able to penetrate our defenses for a time. Your uncle led an attack on a colony world using that weapon. It killed millions of civilians," Hornam explained.

Lex felt his stomach drop out from underneath him. This man who had just explained to them that Clark's people were inherently noble surely couldn't have been involved in an attack on civilians. Clark spun around to face Jor-El.

"Is that true?" he asked.

"We were told that the world was a military outpost," Jor-El said with no emotion in his voice. Lex had to remind himself that the man wasn't really a man, that he was just a hologram with Jor-El's memories.

"All those people died because of you?"

"We didn't know, Kal-El," Jor-El insisted. "We were fighting a war for our very existence."

Clark grimaced and then turned back to Hornam. "No harm will come to the humans?"

"Clark," Lex gasped.

"We care not for this planet. The inhabitants are but children. I am surprised they have even made it out into the galaxy," the man assured Clark. Something inside Lex was insisting that he was lying.

"Clark, he's lying," Lex insisted and shook Clark's arm as hard as he could.

"And if I don't come?" Clark probed.

"We will punish the inhabitants of this planet for your insolence," Hornam assured him.

"He's lying," Lex insisted. "You know that he will attack regardless of whether you go or not."

Clark looked at him and then turned to face his father. "Is he lying, Father?"

"He could be," Jor-El admitted. He continued to speak in English so that the Sengari could hopefully not understand him. When the man on the screen made no indication of understanding the exchange, Lex was fairly certain. "The Sengari have used trickery in the past to get what they wanted."

Clark considered that for a moment before responding. He turned to look at Lex and there was sadness in his eyes. He reached out and took Lex's hands in his. "Lex, even if I hide, they'll only look for me. They know I'm here and they obviously want me. I can't hide and allow innocent people to be hurt or killed for me. I can't," Clark said and his eyes pleaded 'don't ask that of me'.

Lex swallowed thickly and nodded. Tears pricked at his eyes but didn't fall. This was not the time for that. He needed to be strong for Clark now.

"I love you, Clark," Lex said. 'I can't lose you now,' his brain screamed but Lex couldn't bring himself to voice the thought.

What Lex said wasn't what Clark had been expecting to hear, but when Lex let go of Clark's arm and stepped back slightly, Lex knew the other man understood. Lex was going to let Clark go because it was the only choice that Clark could ever make. Clark needed to do this. He needed to be the hero one last time even if it meant that this time he wouldn't be coming back. Clark loved Lex, but the rest of humanity was too much of a price to pay to be allowed to stay.

"Thank you," Clark whispered. He turned back to the console and told Hornam that he would be coming.

"Their ship is arriving now," Clark told Lex and Jor-El a moment later. "Father, you need to hide so that they do not find you. Lex will reactivate you once we're gone."

Jor-El bowed slightly to both Clark and Lex and then vanished. Lex was left alone with Clark for the last time and found that he didn't know what to say.

"It'll be okay," Clark assured him and reached out to run a soothing hand along the side of Lex's face. "I love you."

"I love you too, Clark. I... I don't know what I'll do without you."

"You'll go on, Lex. You'll live and make me proud of you. You need to help these people now. Jor-El will show you how." Clark knew that he wouldn't ever be coming back. Lex's throat tightened and he started to find it hard to breathe.

The first alien man entered the building and Lex felt a sob being torn from his throat. He stepped up to Clark and wrapped the larger man in his arms. They kissed deeply and passionately for a long moment. The Sengari people seemed to sense the emotion of the moment and didn't intervene. Lex was secretly grateful. He needed this last moment with Clark more than anything else in the world.

"I love you," Lex whispered as he finally pulled away.

"I love you too," Clark said with a sad smile. He slipped out of Lex's arms and turned to the aliens.

Then they were again speaking in the alien language that Lex didn't understand. They took Clark and led him out of the building. Clark didn't look back. Lex was glad. He didn't want Clark to remember him with tears streaming down his face.

***_***


*July 20 to 29, 2018*

It hadn't worked. Lex had been right; the Sengari were lying. They had taken Clark but they hadn't gone away. They hung in orbit around the planet for the next four days, and there was no further communication from them. Lex ached to speak with them and try to find out what was happening to Clark, but he also feared the answer he might receive. He hadn't asked Jor-El, but he had seen the answer in the other man's eyes. The punishment for Clark's 'crime' was death. The thought of his beautiful Clark dead or dying in some alien ship was more than Lex could bear. For four days he felt like he was going to snap, sat on the edge of insanity and just waited, and then the worst happened.

The attack came early in the evening. The sun was just setting over the horizon. Lex was sitting on the balcony of the penthouse he had shared with Clark for so many years and watching it sink lower and lower into the sky. Clark had always loved this time of day and Lex couldn't even begin to count the number of times he and his lover had come out here to watch the day end.

It was a crack, like lightning striking, but the sky was clear and no storms were forecast. A boom followed and then a blinding flash of light. When he could see again, Lex looked towards the source of the sound and the light. The entire downtown core seemed to be on fire. Lex blinked several times to clear his eyes, but the sight remained. The smell was starting to reach him then and it seemed to convince his mind that something horrible was happening.

Lex didn't hesitate. He grabbed what little he would need from the penthouse and went immediately to the underground facility he and Clark had built in Smallville. It was located underneath the farm that Clark had inherited from his parents when they had both been killed in a car accident two years previously. They had originally built the facility in response to Jor-El's urgings. He had wanted Clark to build it somewhere cold, preferably in Antarctica. Clark had refused, it was simply too far away, but eventually they had agreed on an underground location.

Lex was thankful that he'd had the foresight to retrieve Jor-El's power cell from LuthorSpace the day that Clark had been taken so that he didn't need to return there. He knew that he would need the alien man's insight to understand what happened in the future.

The compound was where he first turned on the news broadcasts and found out that the Sengari were attacking seemingly random locations all over the planet. Lex couldn't believe it. He had given up Clark and it had been pointless; they were still attacking.

Lex didn't have time to grieve, though. Almost immediately after reaching the facility, his phone was ringing. He answered it and found that it was Dan Rainer calling from NASA to get Lex's opinion on the defensive capabilities of the ships Lex's company had built. He spent the better part of the next two days working with NASA and Washington to organize some type of defense. He refused to leave the compound, though. He and Clark had built the place to withstand almost anything, and it was likely the safest location on the planet.

On July 24, Lex lost contact with Washington. The day after he started hearing rumors that the capitol had been all but destroyed. Almost all the news broadcasts were down, so the reports came trickling in over the radio. Lex had found an old receiver that Clark had stashed in the compound just in case. He listened to it whenever he could.

After the 28th, the attack seemed to stop, and Lex ventured out into the ruined city. He felt somewhat like a coward for hiding, but he had helped in the only way he could, by providing information to the people who needed it. After all, he figured, it made no sense to get himself killed in a conflict that he *knew* they had no chance of winning. He had asked Jor-El about that probability and the man had been very clear on that point. They couldn't win. All they could hope to do was survive and fight back sometime in the future.

When he went to the surface, Lex was surprised to find that the town seemed to have been barely touched by the attack. He spoke to several people in town that day. They were all scared and demoralized and told him stories of major centers in ruins. They didn't know what to do and they didn't have any idea why they had been attacked. Lex didn't know the answers to those questions any better, but he definitely felt like he was in a better position to get them.

***_***


*July 30, 2018*

Lex woke to a warning that there was someone outside the compound. No one was supposed to know that this facility was located below the farm, or even how to get down to enter it, so the warning was more than mildly disturbing. Lex rolled out of bed, pulled on his robe, and quickly moved to the security panel. He turned on the monitor and the image of a blonde woman holding a very young child appeared on the screen. At first he didn't recognize her, but then she turned and looked directly at the camera and Lex knew.

"Chloe," he breathed. Clark must have told her about the compound at some point and now she was here seeking some kind of refuge. Lex had no idea how she'd gotten there all the way from Boston through the chaos that had marked the last week, but somehow she had, and he found that he was happy to see her. This woman was one of his last ties to the man he had loved more than anything else in the world.

He activated the mechanism that would unlock the door and then headed over to the entrance to greet her.

"Lex," she gasped as she saw him when the door opened. "I'm so sorry. I had nowhere else to go and Clark always told me that if something awful happened I should come here and I would be safe."

Lex nodded. "Come in," he invited her and ushered her in before closing the door soundly behind her. It locked again, the heavy steel bars sliding through concrete and sealing them inside once more.

"How did you get here?" Lex asked her as soon as they were securely inside.

"I was lucky. I was on an assignment in the middle of nowhere when the attacks began. If I had been in the city, I would have died with everyone else. I remembered what Clark told me, and I came here. I moved mostly at night and hid during the day. I stayed out of the cities. You know that most of the countryside was untouched? Seems like they were only interested in eliminating population bases larger than a million."

Chloe shifted the child in her arms as she spoke it made a soft mewling sound. The child was indeed small, and younger than Lex had originally guessed. Wisps of soft, blonde hair curled around its head and when it opened its eyes, they were a clear green color.

Chloe looked down at the child as well. "I don't know her name, but I've been calling her Hope. Her mother was dead and I couldn't just leave her there to die as well," Chloe explained.

"She's not yours," Lex said with a nod. He had just assumed, but of course Clark would have said something to him if Chloe had been pregnant. She had always remained his best friend even after she moved halfway across the country to take a job at a rival newspaper.

"No."

"She just looks like you, is all," Lex said and then shook his head to clear it.

"I know. Where's Clark?" Chloe asked the question that Lex had been dreading since the moment he had first seen her standing outside the complex. She looked around, trying to find the other man.

Lex didn't know what to say. How could he explain something like this to anyone? Clark had sacrificed himself to prevent an attack on Earth that still happened anyhow. None of his friends would want to hear that. He remained silent and eventually Chloe's eyes came back to rest on his. She must have seen the answer in them.

"Oh, Lex," she gasped and raised her hand to cover her mouth. "No. Not Clark."

"Yes," Lex confirmed sadly.

"I'm so sorry."

"Me too," Lex told her. He didn't want to dwell on this. He couldn't dwell on it any longer. "You look exhausted. Do you want to take a shower and then get some sleep?"

"Yes," she told him. She sounded so grateful. Lex could only imagine the nightmare she had been through in the last few days. "You have hot water?"

"Yes."

"How?"

"Fusion generator in the basement. It's perfectly safe," he added when he saw the look of surprise on her face.

"That sounds great," she told him.

Lex led her to the bathroom and showed her where everything was. He offered to get her a sweat suit that she could change into. They would wash her clothing that day and then go out into the city tomorrow to hunt for more things in her size.

"Let me take Hope while you shower," Lex offered. He reached out and took the strangely silent child from Chloe's arms. "Is she always this quiet?" he asked her. He didn't know much about babies, but he did know that they weren't usually like this.

Chloe nodded. "I think she might be deaf. I'm not sure. Hardly ever cries, though."

"Oh," Lex answered. That would explain it, he guessed.

"There's formula in my bag," Chloe told him and reached down to dig it out. "I got it from an abandoned convenience store on the way, but I was afraid to give her any because I didn't know if the water was safe."

"The water here is safe," Lex assured her and took the package from Chloe. "Don't worry. Shower, get changed, and we'll talk more when you're done."

"Okay," she said and smiled weakly. "Thank you so much."

Lex nodded and then turned to leave. The door shut behind him softly.

"Jor-El?" Lex called and the hologram of Clark's father appeared next to him.

"Yes, Lex-Luthor?"

"I think it's time to talk seriously about time travel."