A/N: Sorry about the delay, for some reason, the Muse was holding back on me. (Given the Muse's usual tendencies, I probably should have had another week to recover from the shock!)

***

Lana's tears blurred her vision again as she watched Jonathan and Martha responding to Clark's desperate sobbing. His entire world had collapsed, she realized, with a pang of empathy so strong it came with a physical jolt. Lex's face was unreadable as he watched.

"What do we do now, Lex?"

That earned her a look so cold she involuntarily stepped away. "You didn't have that planned?" he asked, with an elaborately courteous intonation. "I'm surprised. To think that you went ahead and embroiled two more innocent people without even thinking what would happen next." He shook his head with a reprooving half-smile.

"They're his *parents*, Lex, and they love him," she snapped back.

"So I see." He turned slightly away from her. "Mr. and Mrs. Kent, I presume?" After a few moments, Martha seemed to realize that they'd been addressed, and looked up at him.

"Yes," she answered, her attention still focused on Clark. Lana saw some emotion flash briefly over Lex's face, disappearing before she could even identify it.

"Has Miss Lang explained the situation?"

"To some extent," Martha answered, more of her attention now on him, her eyes cautious.

"As one of his near-victims, I do take an interest. How did you come to give him to be trained as a superior hitman?"

Her jaw tightened and the man looked up, as if sensing her distress made him realize they were no longer alone. Martha looked for all the world as if she were counting to ten before answering. "We...realized he was...different. Special. That extraordinary strength. We didn't know what to do, so we took him to the governor's office. We didn't know where else."

The man added, "They assured us everything would be fine. They even suggested that we wait to come back to see him." His mouth twisted in disgust. "They said he was so affectionate that it would make it easier if he weren't confused by us coming and going. They promised to take good care of him. We even saw where they were housing him...they had pictures, and toys, and everything. We saw them hold him, play with him, treat him like a child should be treated. So we missed him, but knew that--*thought* that he was in the right hands." He paused. "Then they called, and said that was dead."

"One of the staff had a young son with chicken pox. She must have been infectious and Clark's system couldn't fight it, they said. His immune system was different. He was dead after just a few hours. They even had a funeral. But now I'm not surprised that they didn't let us see...him, just the coffin. It was so little..." Lana had never imagined that Martha's tranquil voice could be so bitter. "They told him, after a while, that he didn't have parents." Her mouth twisted in fury. "The room, the cuddling, the toys, all that was a smokescreen. They never touched him or let him touch anyone. When Jonathan and I tried to hug him now, he was alarmed. Said he wasn't allowed to touch people or be touched, except if it was duty. It was one of his rules."

Martha's and Jonathan's faces were open to the world, Lex's was still shuttered. "Then how?" he asked, gesturing to the very definite embrace that Clark was being held in.

"Not until he recognized us. Then he first went back inside that cell. He was confused and frightened by his own parents!"

"So you are his biological parents. I wondered."

"No. We found him. After the meteor shower."

Lana felt a stirring of relief as Lex's face mirrored, for an instant, what she knew was a revival of Lex's fascination with the meteor shower. "Did you ever find out who his biological parents were?"

Martha opened her mouth to answer, but Jonathan cut her off quickly. "No."

Lex's eyes flickered briefly, as if noting something and putting it aside for later consideration. Lana almost jumped as Clark, voice still ragged with tears, said, "They lied to me. They lied to you, too. And they...I didn't know what I was doing was wrong! I thought it was right!" Lana stepped away from Lex to crouch near him and touch his shoulder briefly.

"How were you to know? It's not your fault, Clark. They used you."

"But now, what can I do?" he whispered.

"Clark!" a voice barked from the doorway. "Who are these people and what are they telling you?" Lex turned to see the man they had apprehended earlier standing there, free and armed. He rolled his eyes as some inner commentator chortled that true to form, his security staff seemed to be no more than a mild nuisance, if even that, to the various malefactors who seemed intent on infesting his life.