Everything started with coffee.

Well, okay, that's not exactly true. Everything started when my mother met my father and Lex's mother met his father. And after that, things just became this hurtling two-person train wreck, disaster narrowly, unknowingly averted, until the coffee started it all in earnest.

Contrary to popular belief I don't wholly subsist on coffee. I believe very much in that balanced breakfast they show you on the back of the cereal box with milk and juice and toast and eggs and maybe half a roasted chicken on the side. Outside of fake commercial world, I'll have my glass of orange juice with my coffee and my pop tart, thanks.

It was a Wednesday then (cruelest of all cruel weekdays so far from a weekend) and we were utterly and completely out of every one of the vital items on my list of things which comprise a complete breakfast. I figured it was because I'm not the world's most conscientious housekeeper and dad was out of town. More than that, he was out of the country. Kind of. Lex had sent him up to Canada to inspect some of their fertilizer operations. And when I say 'inspect' I mean 'spy on.' But not that exciting, high-rolling world of finance, James Bondish-type way, otherwise I was pretty sure Lex would have gone himself.

I vaguely decided that poorly-stocked cabinets equaled a tip from the cosmos that the Beanery'd been hurting for my money recently. Ergo I should pay them a visit and correct the oversight. Then I got lost for a minute or so trying to imagine 00Lex and failing miserably. By the time I realized how much time I'd just wasted, I was grabbing my stuff and flying out the front door.

If anyone had bothered asking me, supposed former caffeine queen, I would have told them that two coffeehouses could not, no sir, survive in Smallville, Kansas. When you think about it, the idea is completely ludicrous. Especially considering that one of said coffeehouses is partially owned by Lex "Hostile Takeover Poster Person" Luthor. What actually happened when Lana opened the Talon is a study in small town sociological demographics. Thanks to the unending amateur poetry slams, the Talon quickly cornered the youth market, and people I swear I'd never even seen before started showing up at the Beanery--tall farming types with kind, weathered faces and nervous hands, all sipping their espressos and playing checkers and Scrabble on worn game boards.

There are more and more days, most days now, when I prefer the Beanery. It's the place where everybody knows my name, right? Or it was until people I didn't know started showing up. Sometimes they wave to me anyhow (this is still Kansas, after all). And hey, it's a place where I don't feel like I'm stuck inside a live episode of The Young and the Clueless with Clark and Lana shuffling little circles around each other. Three whole years of that business and not an inch closer, I swear. I can't even begin to tell you what a relief it was when I finally got off that bizarre joyride to nowhere fast.

On that particular morning when I dashed in the front door there was a wait. County fair aside, a line of any sort in Smallville practically deserves its own banner headline: Queue of Three Forms Inside Weed-and-Feed, Customers Mildly Irked. And this wasn't just some piddly three-person thing either, it was more of an Elvis-has-not-yet-left-the-building style crowd. I wondered if the management had finally broken down and spiked the coffee with crack or something. Rising on my toes, I bounced around, trying for a better view. Finally, seeing an opening, I darted through, wriggling low under someone's elbow, which (naturally) was the precise time when said elbow snapped down, hitting me square in the center of my back and sending a cascade of iced coffee over my neck.

"Ow," I managed, almost too shocked by the liquid running down my top to say anything at all.

"Excuse me," the person on the other end of the elbow said, but in a way that indicated, in fact, that I wasn't at all excused, and probably wouldn't be anytime in the near future.

My shirt squished against my skin in lots of really disgusting ways. I looked up, trying to keep my back as flat as possible to avoid spreading the coffee around. Ah, that explained it. "Sabotaging the competition. Tunnel under, blow them at the moon. Don't worry, I won't sue."

"Cold coffee," he said flatly, eyebrows inching together. "No case." He lifted the cuff of his dress shirt and inspected stray freckles of coffee on the material with a small frown.

That guy? The McDonald's coffee? He didn't get it. That made me want to laugh. They'd made a Seinfeld episode out of it and he didn't get it. "Kidding? Granted, the reference is a couple years out of date, but..."

Dropped the cuff. "Oh. Yes, of course."

It occurred to me too late that Lex Luthor lived in a world where even a friend of a friend might sue you over an accident with a caffeinated beverage. That flustered me for a minute and I forgot to think about how absurd I must've looked, doubled over in front of possibly one of the most interesting people I'd ever met, with beads of coffee falling from the ends of my hair. Eventually, the forgetfulness wore off and I was left feeling stupid and a little irritated that he would let the situation go on as long as it had. "Even though this is, doubtless, all my fault, you think you could brave the crowd and find some napkins or something?" I didn't dare look up to see if he caught the sarcasm.

"My pleasure." It was another minute before he returned. I accepted the napkins, twisting my arm behind my back to blot at the spill. "I have a table. Why don't you join me?"

"And miss the chance to further destroy my dignity? Lead on." Once we were settled into the overstuffed chairs on either side of Lex's table I applied myself to my problem in earnest. The napkins did a decent job of absorbing the worst of the liquid and I was left with a creepy, clammy feeling between my shoulder blades. "What's with Grand Central over there?" I finally asked him, jerking a thumb towards the still-crowded front counter.

He shrugged. "New scones in the pastry case?"

"I was thinking crack in the coffee."

"Likewise, a well-reasoned conclusion," he said flatly. I didn't have a clue if he was joking or not.

"You're probably closer to being right," I said, my voice coming out more dissatisfied than I meant it to be.

There was this strange little huff from his side of the table and I realized that Lex Luthor might have just swallowed a laugh. "It's a small place, Ms. Sullivan. It's a crowd. You're from Metropolis; you should be reasonably familiar with them."

"It's not the substance of the thing, it's the situation. Crowds don't exist in Smallville, or at least they're a very endangered species. Even you must've noticed that."

"Regardless, I wouldn't hold out hope that this is in any way material for the Wall."

"How did you...oh. Clark?"

"Clark."

It came over me all of a sudden how bizarre this was, like we'd been dropped into an alternate dimension where billionaire friends of your ex-crushes sat around exchanging small talk with you in coffeehouses when you should be in school. I snuck a look at my watch. Yup. Maybe the second half of the day would be salvageable, but there was no way in hell I was making it to my morning classes. I must've been quiet for too long because Lex slid a penny across the table between us, tilting his head fractionally.

"Not even a nickle to adjust for inflation."

"We Luthors didn't get where we are today by just giving our money away." It had the feel of a recycled speech and I wondered if it was a hand-me-down from Lionel. The question rested on the edge of my tongue, but I held myself back, hoping for...I don't know what. A confidence maybe. He and Clark were so close. Clark and I were...not, not anymore. A reporter hopes for confidences, rarely gets them and prints them when she does. The way of the world pretty much sucks sometimes.

"I was just thinking you never answered my question about why you were here."

"There was a question?" he asked mildly. I was instantly on high alert. Code yellow, prepare to fire photon torpedoes. "I recall something about the moon and sabotage, or am I mistaken?"

"Fragmentary lectures on medieval warfare are wasted on you, I see."

"I know more about siege engines than you think."

"I doubt it. I always figured you knew pretty much everything there is to know about things like that." I stood after that, brushing imaginary wrinkles out of my clothing. "I should get back home and change if I want to even make a stab at being educated today," I said by way of explanation. I think...I'm pretty sure that he was watching me while I was walking out the door. If I was a different person I think I'd have looked back to see if I could tell what he was thinking, but I didn't want to spoil it if he was thinking something bad.

I was...interested, I'll give him that. I didn't know much about him. No one did, except maybe Clark. But Clark is Clark and he's got that hypnotizingly white smile. It makes everyone want to spill their guts. Even so, I think sometimes people keep things from him, not to be devious or malicious, but because they don't want to be responsible for making him less charmingly innocent than he is.

We all see what's on the outside of lots of people. Those personality traits and bits of history trail off them like Marley's chains in A Christmas Carol. Never the whole story. It's like knowing who lives in a house by the laundry they hang out to dry. I mean, if you had some pleather dominatrix corset-thing would you just bust it out so your neighbors could see? Probably not. And Lex was a lot more interesting than pleather anyhow, even if the analogy is definitely too weird and kind of awkward.

I touched the soggy back of my shirt and groaned. Sometimes it was really hard to think of the frequent and wanton destruction of my wardrobe as a necessary sacrifice to the gods of journalism.

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