Martha set the shopping bags on the counter "Let's not overreact now Jonathan."

"I'm not overreacting."

Martha started to put away the groceries, "It's just gossip. The innuendos about Clark and Lex are probably not even true."

"Maybe." He hesitantly said, "but it sort of makes sense."

"I mean I thought something along those lines might be going on a few years ago." Martha concurred.

"We both did." Jonathan thought of the way he tried to warn Clark off Lex without having to actually explain his real concerns.

"Then he started dating Lana…" She handed him the can goods to put in the pantry.

Jonathan continued her thought, "…but something has seemed off ever since Belle Reve."

Martha agreed, "He's been overly protective of Lex, but at the same time more reproachful of him than ever. Whenever we talk about him, I can never predict if Clark's going to defend Lex or condemn him."

"Since then the tension between the two of them just seems to have grown by leaps and bounds. And that room Lex kept of Clark never really made sense to me." He put the cereal boxes away.

"I know. If Lex was studying him, why didn't he keep it all in a lab or somewhere more clinical. The way Clark described it, the room seemed more like a shrine."

"Maybe it was a shrine. It wouldn't be unlike a Luthor to become obsessed with the object of his affection." Jonathan thought out loud, "I wonder how Clark feels about him."

"There's only one way to find out." His wife looked at him knowingly.

"I…I don't know Martha." He didn't want to have to have that talk with Clark. "Clark might not even know himself, at least not consciously."

"I still think you should talk to him about it."

"You're probably right." Jonathan sighed and reluctantly agreed.

"So I'm at the plant, since I have my job back and all, and I hear what a great father I must be from some twenty year old, purple headed techie with a nose ring." Gabe said, sitting down for dinner.

"Well you are a great father." His daughter agreed a little too readily.

"Do you want to hear why I'm such a great father?"

"I'm sure I know."

"Apparently I'm incredibly understanding and progressive for not only allowing my daughter to date another girl, but taking said girl under my roof so that they could be together."

"You're a really great guy Gabe." Lana added in a saccharine voice, bobbing her head.

"But the thing is that we live in a house built by Luthor Corp."

His daughter attempted to counter his reasoning by using distraction. "Could you pass the potatoes please?"

"Built with extremely thin walls." He passed her the dish without missing a beat and not the least bit detoured by the methods the girls were using.

"This roast beef is just excellent." Lana complimented Chloe while initiating the 'let's just ignore him' mode of defense.

"It did turn out really good didn't it?" Chloe caught on to Lana's tactic.

"And I've never heard a single thing. And after you two went to the movies the other night and were all weird, I made a point to listen. I also know for a fact you two sleep in different rooms, separately of course, and that my only daughter who believes in the truth above all things wouldn't keep such a secret from her poor, hard-working dad."

Chloe caved at the last part, "We're pretending to date in order to get the town use to same-sex couples."

"Chloe, don't deny our love!" Lana protested.

"Somehow this scenario I buy. But the question remains: Why exactly?"

"So that when we fix Clark and Lex up, they won't have to deal with so much of the community backlash." Chloe explained.

"We weren't going to tell anyone!" Lana groaned.

"Oh come on, we have to tell him! We live here and he's not stupid."

Gabe tried to come to grasp with the logic of teenage girls, "Clark Kent's gay?"

"As the resident expert, I'd say there's a good chance." Lana answered.

"And you think Lex Luthor would be interested in another guy?"

"Oh come on? I've seen Lex flirt with Clark, flirt with Adam, do obscene things with water bottles and let's face it, he wears more silk and pastels than I do." Lana argued, "And I think I even caught him flirting with Jason once."

He stared in disbelief at the young lady currently living in his spare bedroom, "Obscene things with water bottles??"

"He sucks them." Chloe explained with a dazed look in her eye. She quickly realized what she said out loud to her father, blushed bright red and added "I could have sworn I've saw him check Clark out a few times."

Gabe schooled his features in to one of utter belief, "You know, I think you two girls are right…Come to think of it, when I first met Lex, he kept touching me."

"What???" Chloe looked suddenly ill.

"Yeah, he put his arm around me and everything. I think he was trying to cop a feel." Gabe ducked his head and tried not to laugh at the expression on his daughter's face.

"Oh ewww…" Chloe took her father entirely too seriously, "he was probably just trying to do that Luthor 'I'm getting all in your space' intimidation thing."

"No, he wanted me." He kept a straight face.

Lana looked like she was having a hard time not laughing, "It's possible. You're a very attractive and personable man Gabe."

"You're messing with me, aren't you?! Tell me you're messing with me." Chloe pleaded.

Gabe couldn't help himself and started to laugh, "Oh he wanted me. He wanted me bad."

"That was just cruel! And gross! And did I mention cruel?!"

"My daughter is pretending to be in love with the young lady I view as a second daughter while trying to set up my boss with her teenage ex-crush." Gabe managed to stop laughing and took a deep breath, "While I know from experience I can not stop you, I can make you pay."

"That wasn't punishment, that was grave mental trauma." She complained.

"Just a word of caution." Gabe got serious.

Chloe and Lana nodded solemnly.

"Please don't get me fired."

Clark couldn't help but think about what Lana had said regarding the way he had betrayed Lex's trust and friendship. It wasn't as if he hadn't felt guilt over his actions, but he had always been able to rationalize them to himself enough to push the guilt away. Lately it seemed as if the world had been conspiring to confuse Clark, and the more confused he got, the angrier he became.

Chloe had also thrown him for a loop recently. First there was that god-awful, uncomfortable conversation about sex and Chloe's mystery boyfriend. And she basically told Clark he was her new best friend. Then the next time he saw her, she practically took his head off because he wanted to see Lana who was most definitely there. He could see her skeleton hiding in the upstairs hall.

And he still couldn't get where Chloe got the idea he was a judgmental prude or that he was angry with Lex for having sex. That was ridiculous. The increasingly frequent tension between him and Lex had nothing to do with anyone else. Like he told Lana, it was complicated.

He cared for Lex. According to his parents, he cared entirely too much for Lex, but that was because he was a Luthor and Luthors are dangerous.

On the other hand, they had always taught him not to judge people over things they had no control over. They told him that sons don't always have to become their fathers and for three years he stuck to that conviction. Then Lex began to betray that belief, and if Lex became just like Lionel, what would keep Clark from becoming the son Jor-El wanted. It wasn't the room that pushed Clark into going to the caves with Kara, it was the fact that Lex stopped fighting against becoming like Lionel and started using his own weapons against him.

And Lex had kept that room about him, like some kind of science experiment.

Clark shuddered at that thought. Almost every fear Clark had ever grown up with had been represented by that room.

Clark had bought into the 'friendship of legend' that Lex sold him. He was the only person Clark had ever met who seemed to genuinely get the loneliness and isolation of being an outsider. With Lex, Clark had felt less alone than with anyone else in his life. He had truly believed that no matter what happened, Lex would be his friend for the rest of his life.

The idea that Lex really just thought of him as an object to be studied broke Clark's heart.

Besides, he wasn't the only person Lex treated like an object. Clark sympathized with the women Lex had cast off with pretty trinkets after using them. Even if most, or all of them save one psycho, didn't mind the casualness of their relationships, it bothered Clark to think that Lex had a whole history of depersonalizing people.

Clark heard footsteps coming up the stairs and put down the book he wasn't really reading.

"Dad."

"Son, I wanted to come up here and see how you were doing."

"Fine, I'm just fine." Clark knew he wasn't very convincing.

"I saw Lana stop by here the other night."

"Yeah, we decided to try to just be friends."

"That's great."

"Yeah."

Their conversation wasn't progressing the way Jonathan had planned it. "So, how's Lex?"

"Why does everyone think I constantly know how Lex is?" Clark responded rather defensively.

"I don't know son. Perhaps because you two always seemed so close, even when you spent months apart."

Clark wasn't looking at him. "I don't know if we'll ever be really close again, not after what I found at the castle."

"The Room?" Jonathan could hear the capitalization in his own voice.

"He's been studying me Dad, like some sort of science project. I don't think he even thinks of me as a person. And I can't just let him hurt me, because I think if there's someone on this planet that ever could ever really destroy me, it would be him."

Jonathan sighed deeply at the thought of having to remotely defend a Luthor. He liked it much better when Clark defended Lex and all he had to do was sit in the corner with his little mental 'Beware of Luthors' sign firmly attached to his forehead. "Lex has been in the middle of all the strange happenings of Smallville from day one. And I don't just mean when his father sent him into exile here."

"The meteor shower?"

"Yes. Maybe Lex's curiosity is motivated by wanting to understand what's happened in his life, to his life, and not because he thinks you're a science project. You just happen to be right smack in the middle of all of it with him."

"But Dad, I think we're just destined to not be friends and not to be able to trust each other. Numan and Seget."

Jonathan hated that damned cave. "You think you're Numan and Lex is Seget?"

"Yes" Clark responded, barely above a whisper.

"Refresh my memory on the legend of Numan and Seget, Clark. Tell me the story."

"Numan will fall from the sky in a rain of fire. He'll have the strength of ten men and be able to start fire with his eyes. He'll protect the entire world one day. Seget is like a brother to Numan, but one day he'll turn against Numan and together they'll be the balance between good and evil."

"Well that certainly puts a damper on things if you believe in it."

"Lex thinks Seget is the hero, that he's the brave one who'll go up against the powerful Numan to keep him in check so he doesn't take over the world."

"It's a valid interpretation." Jonathan nodded his head and then added, "Or maybe, just maybe, they're both the heros of this story."

Clark looked up at Jonathan for the first time since he came up the stairs.

"What do you mean?"

"The legend says that Numan would one day save the world. He can't be all that bad since he saves the world. But then again, he could easily let his desire to see save the world and everyone in it get out of control. He could try to help humanity by controlling it, especially if through saving lives day in and day out he saw the very worst that people can be capable of. He might someday want to force people to be nice to each other or to do what's best for them, and with all that power left unchecked he could probably pull it off. But in the process of helping humanity obtain peace, he would be stripping it of its own free-will, the part which makes people human in the first place. If Seget balances out Numan and puts him into check, I would think he's also a hero. The prophesy says that together they'll be the balance between good and evil, not that one is good and the other is evil."

Clark looked a little more hopeful. "But that still means we'll be enemies."

"Two people can oppose one another and not be enemies Clark."

"So you think there's more than one way this could play out?"

Jonathan put his hand on his son's shoulder. "Yes. I think that you and Lex have a choice in the matter."

"I like that interpretation a whole lot better than loosing Lex."

Jonathan sighed again at the pain he heard in Clark's voice with that last statement.

"One thing I've heard consistently with the whole Numan and Seget things is that they are together, in one way, shape or form, no matter what. Also Clark, the picture on the cave wall depicts them sharing the same body. They're two halves of the same whole and they're only complete together. I suppose that's something for you to think about."

Lana looked up and caught the image of Clark heading her way in her locker mirror. She quickly gathered her things, shut the locker and took off down the hall.

He predictably enough jogged right behind her. "Lana, wait up."

"I've got to get to class Clark." Truthfully she was standing not ten feet from the door and had three minutes till the bell rang.

He looked like a kicked puppy. "I came by yesterday."

Lana fiddled with something she didn't need to while avoiding eye contact with him. "Yeah, Chloe mentioned it."

"Are you angry with me, I thought you wanted to be friends?" He did that flarey thing with his nostriles.

Lana did her best to looked very put upon. "It's not about you Clark."

"Then why are you avoiding me? You had Chloe send me away yesterday and then you didn't even go to lunch today."

"Maybe I'm just avoiding everyone. Things have gotten complicated lately."

"What things?"

Lana mentally laughed as he played right along with her script. "Fine, you're probably going to hear about it anyway soon. I'm in love with Chloe."

Clark burst out laughing.

Lana looked hurt and teary eyed. If art didn't pan out for her, someday she'd be a great Soap Opera actress.

Clark stopped laughing. "You're serious?"

"Yes I'm serious. That dinner and a movie thing we went on Saturday night was a date and Julie Peters and Chad Martin saw us together at the movies and now everyone knows!"

"A date." He stated with that adorable 'I don't understand' look on his face.

Lana added for effect, "and we were sort of … making out at the time."

"You and Chloe were making out at the movies?" Clark practically yelled as three people, including her English Lit teacher, turned to stare at them.

Lana lowered her voice and practically whispered. "Yes Clark! Chloe and I made out at the movies."

"Sorry Lana, it's just a bit…wow." He was definitely in shock.

Lana got dramatically defensive. "I'm not sorry about it and I'm not going to be sorry, no matter what the small minded people of this town say or do."

"Um, Ok."

Lana blinked her teary eyes and looked up at him pleadingly. "You're fine with this, right Clark?"

"Well, I…" She could see the mental light bulb flip on as he seemed to suddenly get his brain back from wherever her news had sent it, "what about Jason?"

"We're over."

"Oh."

"You know, I meant what I said before, I don't want to loose you from my life Clark, but the truth is I love Chloe."

The bell rang.

"I, ah … I need to get class now."

Lana called at him as he retreated down the hall, "Clark?"

"Sorry Lana, I just...I really have to go."