They all wore black for Lana's funeral - even Lex - it was what Lana would have wanted.
Edward stood there, scissors hanging down, Jonathan stoically holding back his tears on one side of him, Martha blubbering away on the other. Edward realized then that the things he needed even more than hands were tear ducts.
As his cookie heart felt like it was crumbling within him, he looked over at Chloe and, beside her, Lionel Luthor. Before the funeral had even begun, Lionel had told him that they still had his hands, that he could finally be whole ... for a price. But it didn't matter anymore. All of his life he'd wanted to fit in, but the person who mattered to him most, Lana, had never fitted in. If there was one thing she'd taught Edward it was that it was okay to be an outsider.
He wished that he could stop blaming himself for what happened to Lana but, despite what Jonathan and Martha kept telling him, he knew that it was all his fault.
Tears welled up in Chloe Sullivan's eyes. Lana's death was all her fault.
Lana was only supposed to have acted as a decoy for the mob, while Edward escaped in the opposite direction. As soon as the mob would have got anywhere near Lana, she would have dropped her plastic scissor hands. But Chloe had intervened, spoilt the plan, and Lana had died.
As soon as Chloe had realized what had happened, she'd gone looking for Edward. It didn't take her long to find him, and then, using strength she didn't know she had, she'd flown him back to where Lana's inert body had been. But by then it was too late - the mob had gone and Lana's body had been taken away. All that remained was a broken piece off a blood-stained placard.
She'd looked at Edward on that night and remembered that, if Lionel's files were to be believed, he was built to be a warrior, and, for just a second, an image of Edward attacking her and a snowstorm of crimson feathers had flashed through her mind. But Edward was no more a warrior than she was an angel. He just stood there, motionless, looking at the upside-down blood-stained placard piece and the word that appeared to be on it:
SNOW
Edward left the funeral service halfway through. Lana was gone, because of him, and nothing could bring her back. The others could remember her in their way, but he'd remember her in his, with shears rather than tears.
Ten minutes later, in the largest cornfield in Smallville, he started work on his greatest, and last, crop picture - Lana Lang. And finally, when that was done, he did the thing that hurt most, but it had to be done - nobody else was going to get hurt because of him.
Edward Kent walked off into the sunset, away from Smallville.
He never came back.