What with one thing and another, Lex hadn't had a chance to be alone with his thoughts until late that night. The Kents were the only ones staying with Clark; he and Pete both knew that occasional hours in the safety of the White House and its environs were one thing, the Vice President or President spending a night without a Secret Service presence would be quite another. They'd obey a direct order to leave but the questions it would raise couldn't be controlled that easily.
He sat up in bed, back against the headboard, arms clasping his knees. Even saying that Clark was alive was an exaggeration. Respiration and a heartbeat, those were both there, but were they animating a vegetable, that was the question. He wanted to believe, desperately wanted, that his showing no distress when Martha touched him meant that Clark was still in there, that he could be coaxed out again, but he also knew that it could be a leftover response to a previously-learned stimulus. There were shades of grey in defining a vegetable, too.
He loved the Clark he had known and he'd felt that flood back into his heart with just recognizing him in that silent, lost figure. Even if it was just the shell and Clark was still lost, elusive, that shell demanded his love.
The question wasn't whether he would obey that demand but how. They'd have to make arrangements for taking care of him. He hated to admit it, but Clark would be safer away from DC. The question was whether to gamble on telling none of the truth or just part of the truth. Pulling the covers up to his knees, he considered the options.
After the first flurry of attention and profiles during his and Pete's campaign, the media had left the Kents alone, more or less. The fact remained that they'd become icons of his presidency. Homespun heartland goodness and even the barest bones of Clark's return would smell of human interest and photo ops. Prayers answered, long-lost son found, all the works. The only other thing that People magazine could ask for would be a faithful dog nosing at Clark's yet-unresponsive hand. But if they kept everything quiet, the media might be on that, too, and more determined to root out anything and everything about Clark Kent.
Like his being an alien.
His mind kept returning to that same dead end, cold and hard and inescapable. Clark hadn't even said that there were things he couldn't tell; he'd denied that there were any secrets he was hiding. During all that time afterwards, when he'd have sworn that there were no more secrets or lies, Jonathan and Martha and Pete had all kept their mouths shut. It was only a half-hearted consolation that Lana had been kept out, too.
The part of himself that was still Luthor urged him to be angry. Luthors don't feel hurt, they feel angry. Except that the only anger he could create was just that, created, an element with a half-life of an instant.
"Love hurts, Lex." Jonathan had once offered him that truism. Like a fair amount of what Jonathan said, it was so true that it solved nothing, but reminded him that whatever it was, he wasn't walking on untrodden ground and that he wasn't walking it alone.
***
*the door that isn't a door but opens and closes please I don't want to go in there*
*rule I don't remember the rest huge wings sweeping everything away*
*there's a moth in my hands I'm holding a moth except when I open my hands it isn't there even though I can still feel its wings beating*
*if it was the sky that told the secret and the wind blew it to them and now I can't move if it wasn't the sky it was the water that told I never wanted to hurt anyone why won't it stop*
*it's just thunder nothing to be afraid of just thunder it's just thunder*
*if I stay very still they won't see that I'm here*
*I wanted to go thank her but they said she was never there nobody there but her name was still there in red paint*
*no it's not calling you it's scratching its way up the tree to lie on the branch until everything's gone away into something else*
*you don't have to go just stay here quiet and it won't be real any more there won't be anything inside but empty empty look empty glass empty room goodnight*
*if I leave it all there they'll look for it and not for me so dark like the center where everything is turned*
*if I wouldn't do this why not if somebody did then but I don't know that other world any more if I was never there I can't go back there please I want to*
*did I fail if I'd been better why didn't they know this would happen it's not worth it*
*he has to be careful because they're watching and their eyes burn*
He sat up in bed, back against the headboard, arms clasping his knees. Even saying that Clark was alive was an exaggeration. Respiration and a heartbeat, those were both there, but were they animating a vegetable, that was the question. He wanted to believe, desperately wanted, that his showing no distress when Martha touched him meant that Clark was still in there, that he could be coaxed out again, but he also knew that it could be a leftover response to a previously-learned stimulus. There were shades of grey in defining a vegetable, too.
He loved the Clark he had known and he'd felt that flood back into his heart with just recognizing him in that silent, lost figure. Even if it was just the shell and Clark was still lost, elusive, that shell demanded his love.
The question wasn't whether he would obey that demand but how. They'd have to make arrangements for taking care of him. He hated to admit it, but Clark would be safer away from DC. The question was whether to gamble on telling none of the truth or just part of the truth. Pulling the covers up to his knees, he considered the options.
After the first flurry of attention and profiles during his and Pete's campaign, the media had left the Kents alone, more or less. The fact remained that they'd become icons of his presidency. Homespun heartland goodness and even the barest bones of Clark's return would smell of human interest and photo ops. Prayers answered, long-lost son found, all the works. The only other thing that People magazine could ask for would be a faithful dog nosing at Clark's yet-unresponsive hand. But if they kept everything quiet, the media might be on that, too, and more determined to root out anything and everything about Clark Kent.
Like his being an alien.
His mind kept returning to that same dead end, cold and hard and inescapable. Clark hadn't even said that there were things he couldn't tell; he'd denied that there were any secrets he was hiding. During all that time afterwards, when he'd have sworn that there were no more secrets or lies, Jonathan and Martha and Pete had all kept their mouths shut. It was only a half-hearted consolation that Lana had been kept out, too.
The part of himself that was still Luthor urged him to be angry. Luthors don't feel hurt, they feel angry. Except that the only anger he could create was just that, created, an element with a half-life of an instant.
"Love hurts, Lex." Jonathan had once offered him that truism. Like a fair amount of what Jonathan said, it was so true that it solved nothing, but reminded him that whatever it was, he wasn't walking on untrodden ground and that he wasn't walking it alone.
***
*the door that isn't a door but opens and closes please I don't want to go in there*
*rule I don't remember the rest huge wings sweeping everything away*
*there's a moth in my hands I'm holding a moth except when I open my hands it isn't there even though I can still feel its wings beating*
*if it was the sky that told the secret and the wind blew it to them and now I can't move if it wasn't the sky it was the water that told I never wanted to hurt anyone why won't it stop*
*it's just thunder nothing to be afraid of just thunder it's just thunder*
*if I stay very still they won't see that I'm here*
*I wanted to go thank her but they said she was never there nobody there but her name was still there in red paint*
*no it's not calling you it's scratching its way up the tree to lie on the branch until everything's gone away into something else*
*you don't have to go just stay here quiet and it won't be real any more there won't be anything inside but empty empty look empty glass empty room goodnight*
*if I leave it all there they'll look for it and not for me so dark like the center where everything is turned*
*if I wouldn't do this why not if somebody did then but I don't know that other world any more if I was never there I can't go back there please I want to*
*did I fail if I'd been better why didn't they know this would happen it's not worth it*
*he has to be careful because they're watching and their eyes burn*