Chapter 5
It felt like he was walking into the gates of Hell.
At the town border, Clark found himself coming to a halt, his body acting of its own accord as the sign appeared a hundred feet below him. Even in the dark of night, it was plainly visible: Welcome to Smallville, Meteor Capital of the World. He shuddered at the sight, his stomach churning at the thought of his fiery, Biblical entrance to this world a little over seventeen years prior. In his arrival, he had brought destruction; sometimes Clark wondered whether it was his curse to spend the rest of his life trying to make up for it.
But he wasn't here to reminisce. With a whoosh of air, he pushed himself forwards through the sky again, his eyes staring ahead to ensure he stayed on course.
Within a minute, he saw what he was looking for. Clark dropped out of the sky, alighting next to the deserted entrance with a scrape of gravel. It didn't feel right to fly over it. The arch above the entryway seemed incredibly foreboding. Smallville Cemetery. All around him, the sounds of the night seemed incredibly loud. The leathery thump of bat wings. The hoot of owls. The gentle crunching as rabbits and raccoons scurried through the underbrush. And the chirp of crickets above it all, providing a beat to the Gothic symphony of the night.
He stepped through the arch slowly, eyes glancing left and right, scanning the night. He hadn't been this afraid for himself since before puberty.
Get a hold of yourself, Clark! he shouted in his head. There is nothing to be afraid of here.
If that's so, then why am I shivering?
He looked down at his arms, crossed over his chest and trembling a little. He couldn't feel temperature, not in the ranges it came on Earth. From the plains of Antarctica to the deserts of the Sahara, it all felt the same to him.
But on a seventy-degree night in Kansas, he trembled like a frightened rabbit.
Clark realized what he must have looked like, standing in a cemetery alone and shivering. Angry with himself, he set his jaw and dropped his arms to his side like a gunfighter. The eerie tingle on the back of his neck faded to nothing as he willed it away. I'm here for a reason. I shouldn't forget it.
Determined, he walked forwards towards his goal, parting between the tombstones until he found himself standing before a triumvirate of granite obelisks. His eyes panned from the left to the right, reading the names aloud in his mind.
Lewis Lang. 1952-1989.
Laura Lang. 1959-1989.
His mind caught as he read over the last one. He couldn't bring himself to think it, until finally it burst from his lips with a hint of rage.
"Lana Lang. Born 1986, Died 2006."
Just then, he saw the words engraved beneath. A single phrase. Clark's soul seemed to ignite as he read over the lines.
'Tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all.
His fist tightened into a ball as he howled in anger, crying to the stars which had born him all those years before.
"God damn it, Lana! What do you want from me?!?" he screamed. "I gave you everything and more, but it still isn't enough, is it? Everything I ever did was for you, and you still hold me to my mistakes even after you're gone!"
He paused to wipe spittle off the side of his mouth. Suddenly, all those emotions he had been trying to stow away in some part of his soul came flooding back. He sank to his knees, weeping, at the foot of her stone. "All I ever wanted was for you to be happy, Lana. If it had been what you wanted, I would have flown off into the stars and never looked back."
"I don't know for sure why I was sent here. But if I had known what harm I would have brought to you…I never would have let it happen. I would have rather died with Krypton than see you die because of me."
Clark sat there in the graveyard for a long minute, silently weeping to himself.
"But that's not an option, now is it? Now we've switched. You're up there in the heavens, and I'm down here on Earth. And we're both stuck in our respective places for the foreseeable future."
His head bowed against his chest as he realized what he had to do. Slowly, he clasped his hands together, raised them to his forehead and began to pray. To the one person who he knew he could trust in this matter.
"Lara...are you up there?"
"I think you can hear me. I hope so. Anyway, I don't know if you and Lana are in the same place right now – if people from Krypton even go to the same heaven as people from Earth. But I need a favor from you."
"I need you to promise…that you'll watch over Lana for me. That you'll keep her safe and hold her close when she needs it. Love her…because I can't do it anymore."
Hours later, the grumble of an engine broke through the dreamless sleep Clark found himself awakening from as he rose to his knees from the ground. He blinked furiously as he realized where he was, the shadow of the gravestone in the moonlight blanketing him. Must have nodded off. The engine noise cut out as the headlights from the other side of the cemetery's wall went dark. Clark glanced at his watch; the glowing hands informed him that it was eighteen minutes after midnight. Who on earth would be coming to a cemetery this late?
The sound of footsteps against the earth was his only answer. Something about the sound of it sparked a distant memory in Clark's mind. From his concealed position on the ground, he listened closer. The leather soles hit the ground in a confident rhythm, an unbreaking stride that seemed far too presumptuous for such hallowed ground. Beneath that the sound of breath, slowly being sucked in then released just as slowly. Finally, quietest of all was a steady heartbeat – study, but not normal.
Tha-thump thump.
Tha-thump thump.
Tha-thump thump.
The color rushed to Clark's face as he realized who was quickly approaching him. He leapt to his feet in a smooth motion faster than the eye, a move that caused the rapidly approaching man to leap backwards in his tracks with a deep intake of breath. Clark's eyes stared daggers at the man a few yards in front of him.
"Lex."
His voice had dropped to the icy scrape that he normally reserved for murderers and rapists. Clark took a slight amount of satisfaction in the sound of Lex's heart beat at triple-time as the bald man quickly took on an air of indifference.
"No 'hello,' Clark? No kind greeting? That's certainly no way to greet an old friend – especially in the middle of the night in a graveyard."
Clark glowered at Lex in the moonlight. "What are you doing here?" It sounded more like an accusation than a question.
Lex gestured towards the tombstone behind Clark. "The same thing you are, from the looks of it – saying hello to a friend." He took on a look of mock surprise as he raised his hand to his mouth. "Oh, I'm sorry – were you two…sleeping? Together?" his mouth split wide in an evil grin. "That's so adorable…considering you never had the chance before."
Clark felt as though his forehead was about to explode as the veins popped out of his neck in rage. He leapt towards Lex, yelling "You sick mother…"
…only to be cut off as green fire burst through his veins.
Clark collapsed to his knees at Lex's feet, his intestines churning as though all those diseases his body had fought off without notice over the years had regrouped for a final attack on his GI tract. Lex looked down with a smirk at the man who had once been his best friend.
"Profanity doesn't suit you, Clark," he mocked. Clark could only stare, his eyes trying to focus on the ring on Lex's right hand. The ring that glowed a bright green in the darkness of the night. Curses far more vicious than the one Clark had tried to blurt before rose up with the bile from his stomach, but he could barely summon the energy to open his mouth.
Even after all these years…still hurts so much.
Lex bent down to look his old pal in the eyes. "You know, I could kill you right now, Clark. With this little thing-" -he caressed the green stone on his fist with his other hand- "-it wouldn't be very hard. Just a quick squeeze. No trouble at all, really. But somehow, I don't think Lana would be very happy about that.
"So consider this a warning. If we ever meet again outside of these walls, I won't hesitate to kill you faster than even you can imagine. I won't even have to think about it. But not here."
As he stood, Clark found his voice returned to him. When he heard it, it sounded shaky and small – pitifully so, even. "Lana…never knew you…" he stuttered.
"Neither did you, Clark," Lex said, staring down at Clark again. "Nobody did – not even my father. All you ever saw was what you wanted to see. It seems to be a fairly common problem in this town. Not that it matters anymore. I've moved on to bigger and better things now. Unlike you, I'm not stuck in the past – and I'm not afraid to be what I really am."
With that Lex turned to leave, his trenchcoat swirling like a cape in the darkness, but caught himself and turned back to Clark. Luthor bent down again, causing Clark's pain to increase yet again as the kryptonite came even closer to his tortured flesh.
"Oh, and just so you know." Lex was whispering, his mouth barely an inch from Clark's ear. "You have no idea what you missed with Lana. She was incredible."
And with that, he stood, whirled and walked calmly to his car, leaving Clark lying on the ground ten feet from the grave of the only girl he had ever loved with an image that would haunt him forever.