Metropolis: Luthor Apartments

11:42 A.M.

Saturday, June 5th

"Well, I have to admit, you're the last person I expected to see outside my door."

Clark Kent gave a nervous laugh and set his cup of tea and matching saucer on the coffee table. Just moments ago, he had broken his vow to never set neither hair nor foot into a place that had anything to do with the name Luthor. True, it was just LexCorp's money that had built the place, but it was where the money came from that Clark was concerned about. Years ago, he and Lex Luthor, once a good friend of his, had a falling out. Somehow, he had managed to find out about Clark's origins. Suffice to say, it was enough to end their friendship and send poor Clark off to a research facility where teams of specialists prodded and ran numerous tests on him. Just the memory of the incident brought chills down Clark's spine. He sometimes would dream of the faces, void of emotion. His pleas for them to release him and let him live a normal life with his girlfriend, family, and friends would fill the blank room. It was dreams like this that brought Clark Kent into a lively fit that would sometimes take minutes for his girlfriend to shake him out of.

Somehow, Clark had managed to escape from his childhood nightmare that had become a reality unscathed. To this day, he still didn't exactly know what had happened. All he remembered was a flash of light and him waking up in the caves. Clark chalked it up to his biological father's doing. Perhaps, it had all been a dream. However, your family and girlfriend don't all have the exact dream. His mother, Pete, and Lana all claimed that had the same cruel and indelible nightmare. Whatever had happened, Lex apparently had no memory of the incident. He had even tried to talk to Clark about how their friendship was falling to ruins. Clark, being Clark, shut him out of his life. And since then, he and Lex had become a memory from the past. It was all memories.

A small cough brought Clark out of his reverie.

Enough of the past, Kent; let's focus on the reason why you're in Lana's aunt's apartment and drinking her tea.

"Oh, well believe me, I never thought I would be here either," Clark said with a forced smile.

"So, Clark, what brings you out here to Metropolis?" Nell prompted, fishing for answers. She knew that her niece was now dating Jonathon Kent's son seriously from her last phone call. From the tone of her voice, it seemed that her niece was head over heels for Clark Kent. In their past phone calls, Nell had tried to warn Lana as sweetly as possible, that maybe, her relationship with Clark wasn't exactly the best one for her. Nell had watched him break her niece's heart many times when she was younger and she knew exactly where he got that trait from. She had been the victim of the Kent Charm many years ago, and it still hurt to think about it. To her astonishment, Lana had blown up only a few seconds after she had voiced her opinion. She accused her aunt of counseling about things that she had no insight in and how she was never there for her; she only showed up to congratulate her on her failure. To Nell's dismay, Lana had hung up right after the word 'failure' had slipped out from her mouth. That was the last time Nell had spoken to her niece. She didn't even get a chance to speak to her during her graduation since it seemed like she already had a family. Lana was right; she had never been there for her after she had met Dean and gotten married. What right did she have giving advice to Lana about her life when she wasn't even a part of it?

"Well, Mrs. Potter," Clark began nervously, "I came here, since you and Lana were once close, to umm…ask for permission in marrying you're niece." When he reached the last part, he lowered his voice low enough for Nell's ears to have to strain to pick up his words.

Clark watched as the pleasant, courteous expression on her face changed to shocked and a bit offended.

"Well…this is certainly a surprise," Nell said, trying to lighten up the atmosphere of the room. She strode to the window of the extravagant apartment and gazed down upon the lunch-time rush on the sidewalks below. Dean was probably one of the thousands pounding the sidewalks, looking for a meal.

"Yeah…it must be…." Clark consoled, standing up too. He tried to look confident, but failed miserably. In truth, his stomachs was in knots just thinking about her reaction. Even if she did disapprove, Clark would still ask Lana to be his wife tomorrow; there was no doubt about that. It was just easier if she did approve because there would be less fuss about wedding invitations and he knew that an enormous amount of stress would be taken off of Lana. Although she didn't show it, Lana was very self-conscious about what her aunt thought.

After a few moments of letting Nell process what he had just said, he decided to finally break the silence. "So, umm…what do you think?" he asked lamely.

"What do I think?" she repeated incredulously. "I think that Lana is far too young to be married. I mean, she hasn't even started her career yet!"

Clark tried to keep it in, he really did. "Well, you wouldn't know that now, would you?" he half shouted.

"And by that you mean?"

Clark took a deep breath to control the volume of his voice. "Look Mrs. Potter, you mean a lot to Lana. If you didn't I wouldn't be here right now. I love your niece very much. I want to be a permanent part of her life. Just, please, consider what I'm saying because either way, I'm going to ask her to marry me tomorrow night."

Nell was appalled. Here was her niece's boyfriend standing in her living room defiantly telling her that he was going to ask Lana to be wife whether she approved or not. Nell couldn't help but admire his determination.

"Mrs. Potter―" Clark started again, but was cut off by her cold tone.

"Please, just leave."

Clark sighed inwardly. It didn't exactly go as he hoped it would. He grabbed his blue corduroy jacket off of the black leather couch. Clark hoped that Chloe had a better time turning down all of Lana's suspicions.