Title: Prevention

Author: ty-rant84

Summary: Some decisions shouldn't have to be made…

Archiving: Just ask

Feedback: Rocks!

Parts: 1/1

Disclaimer: I don't own Smallville. I do own a really pretty picture of Tom Welling g

Rating: PG (maybe a little bit higher. It's got some questionable references. I just don't think it warrants a higher rating like PG-13)

A/N: I wrote this while listening to Switchfoot's "On Fire". Maybe it's just me being weird, but it was really perfect.

Mom and Dad,

Cassandra saw all of these different futures. The worst part is that when I was with her I saw them too. And in every single one, what they called life was horrible. There was no place untouched. No where that we couldn't go and destroy.

Radiation was deforming children. Babies weren't born. Even worse was when they were. Some were unlucky enough to be born in those worlds. They had to figure out how to survive in that hell.

Our world's not there yet. Almost, though. The potential we have is remarkable. Devastating. Horrifying. Everyone I know ended up dead and only I was left. Only me and billions of other faceless people. Twisted people with six fingers on each hand and extra feet. Radiation effects were everywhere. The use of nuclear bombs was inevitable after the chaos and confusion between entire nations got to be too much. And it happened in all the futures. It was just a matter of when. It always happened.

Lex was there though. He was always there. The one constant in Superman's life. That's what I called myself. The me in the future.

Lex is my best friend. I should have been comforted that I had at least that one person in my life. Through all the horrible times. Nothing could kill me anymore so I always survived for the end. Not even kryptonite could finish me off. I saw myself try a few times. Hundreds of times. I needed it to end and leave me in peace. I strapped myself down to blocks of the green stuff. I lay there for days, weak and incapable of even untying myself until I accepted that it was impossible for me to die from exposure to it. Couldn't even kill myself properly. Lex was usually the one to get me out of the kryptonite setups. It sounds like he cared when I say it like that. He just wanted to make sure I knew. That I knew he would always be there. He laughed as he took the ropes away. Mocked me for being so foolish as thinking that I would be able to give up that easily. Then he would get rid of all the kryptonite. I couldn't even have the hope that I could try again. Maybe it would work. I would make it work. Make it end.

I needed it to end. I wouldn't die though. I never did it right. I was too invulnerable I always had to go back out into the obscene mockery of a world. Back into the twisted limbs and fire torn streets. The explosions every other hundred feet or so. The yelling and screaming as a new infant was born. The sorrow as another one didn't survive more than a few moments. People running and never even looking back to see if their family made it out with them. Stealing every scrap of food from others and then dieing as they ate the contaminated sludge. I walked through it every time, and it was an awesome power to know that I would make it. A horrible knowledge that I wasn't allowed to leave while I knew that the world would never get better. That everyone would die.

As I gave up more and more of my hope, I was anchored all the more securely to the war stricken worlds. Places of mutation and famine. Plague ran through every section of the planet and most of space that humans had managed to venture into. No place, no one was unscathed except for me and Lex.

Lex was always okay. In every future I saw, he was there and looked no different from when I saw him yesterday. It's weird to think that none of what I saw and felt, what I lived, was real. It never happened. But it will and that is why I have to do this.

Lex was always there, but that's not a good thing. That's not anything to be happy about. He was my adversary. My opponent. He was always on the opposite side of where I stood.

In some of the futures, I was the one causing the destruction. Lex was the savior of the human population. He was always fighting me and preventing me from winning. From going as far as I wanted to. But, in most of the futures, it was Lex. He used his money and influence to slowly eat away at the structure of the governments and take over, destroying everything I know. Once he had finished with that, he started experimenting with his power. How many people could he kill before the public made a fuss over it? How many experiments could he perform on humans before they revolted? He only came to these options when the world was irreparable anyway. He rarely started out with these intentions.

No matter which future I went to, one of us was the cause of the destruction. One of us ended the world. It was either Lex or I and no one else managed to ever do what we did on our own. And that's why I have to do this. That's why I decided that this was the best option. I have to save you. I have to save everyone.

I only saw what would happen with what has happened already. It can be changed. And I saw a lot more of the outcomes than what I've mentioned. I know what led up to them. Either Lex or I betrayed the other. Most often it was me. I lied to him for years. I called him my best friend and still, I never told him my secret. I walked up to him every day and lied. Just like I do now. I never trusted him. I couldn't tell him my secret.

Sometimes, he would go too far in researching me and would find something too in depth for the good of the world. That's when things would go bad. That's when we got out of control. And that's why I have to eliminate the problem.

If we weren't friends, then the end of the world as we know it would never come about. I can't just stop seeing him, though. That happened in a few of the futures. He always just pushed harder into my past. No, I have to completely and utterly eliminate the problem.

There's only one way to stop those futures. Lex can't research through death. He can't end the world through death. He can't betray or be betrayed through death. And he won't. I won't let him. And that's why I'm doing this. Even though I hate the thought.

I wanted you to know that I don't think of you as bad parents. Nothing went wrong in my life to compel me to make this choice.

I'll never see you again. I'll miss you. Remember that I love you always, Mom and Dad. I've got to go do what I have to do. I'm not strong enough to be unbreakable yet. Biologically speaking anyway. Mentally, I have to be as strong as that Superman I was supposed to become. Dad, your shotgun is in the barn. I love you both. Tell Lex I loved him too. That's why I did it.

Remember me,

Clark