BARRIERS
Lana returned home from the mansion just as the sun dipped below the horizon. The sky was streaked with red, and orange and purple, looking like the multihued veil of an exotic dancer had been cast out over everything. Downtown was deserted. Few shops remained open late on a Sunday, if they were open at all. The lights at the Talon were off. Lana pulled behind the building and parked.
All the chaos of the day was beginning to take its toll. Exhaustion hit her like a tidal wave. Physically and emotionally exhausted, all she could do for several minutes was sit in her car with her head bowed. She might have dozed off but for the words that kept circling around and around in her mind like a swimming shark.
"Whatever lie he told you this time..."
She clenched her fists around the steering wheel.
Clark hadn't told her anything. He'd barely said two words to her. He'd simply held her so tightly she could feel the beating of his heart against her chest and the dampness of tears against her cheek - his tears, not hers. Lana had felt his hands shaking as he'd put her down and cupped her face between them. Any questions she may have had were whisked away by his kiss.
And then the Kents were there, Jonathan and Martha, hurrying Clark away. He needed to go back to the hospital, to make sure he was okay. He needed to rest.
"Lana, why don't you come back tomorrow."
She raised a hand to her chest, recalling how she thought her heart would burst when she first saw him standing there in the foyer. He'd been dead. She'd seen it. She'd felt it when she'd touched him and the coldness of his flesh sent chills up her arms. Somehow he'd come back; ragged and torn and smelling of smoke he'd scooped her up in his arms as if nothing at all were wrong with him. Lana's joy had been tempered by a dark thought, one that had kept her from asking him outright how he could possibly be alive.
Something has changed.
Part of her rationalized that anyone who had come back from the dead would be changed somehow, but she knew her thought came from a different source. The last couple of months had produced some of the happiest days of Lana's life. Clark was all lightness and joy, smiles and laughter, but more than that she'd seen almost a reversal of his personality. He'd become more outgoing, less introspective, like the prison doors had swung open to release him into the world. His mission was to please her and unlike before, he never seemed to have any other pressing engagement that would keep him from her side.
Somewhere between death and resurrection, the doors had slammed shut again.
"Normal people don't rise from the dead."
Lana got out of the car, heading for the back stair that would lead her into her apartment. She had read Clark's medical file before she'd presented it to Lex. Clark's tests were normal. He was human, thoroughly human.
He also should have been dead. Machines can malfunction, and doctors could make errors, but Lana didn't see how they could have been mistaken about a hole through one lung and a massive loss of blood. Even if her own eyes had deceived her, there was no way Clark could have suddenly shown up walking around only hours after being shot. It just didn't happen.
Only - in Smallville - it sometimes did.
If Tina Greer hadn't been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to be dead, actually killed in a confrontation with Clark himself, Lana would have turned and run right out of the Kent's house the moment she'd seen Clark standing there. If she hadn't known that the serum used to bring Adam back to life had been a failure, she would have insisted on taking Clark back to the hospital herself to make sure no trace of the drug was in his system.
She paused with her hand on the door.
Did it matter? He was alive. The pain and horror at watching him die had been miraculously taken away. He was alive, whole, and still loved her with all his heart.
"But," she whispered. "Something has changed."
The door creaked quietly as she pushed it open. Closing it behind her, she set her bag down, and moved into the living room where she stopped.
Candles had been lit all around the room. They filled the apartment with a warm, orange glow and the faint scent of a country garden. The scent complimented the big vase of wildflowers that sat on the coffee table. A yellow ribbon had been tied around the top of the vase. The bow was crooked. It made Lana smile.
He'd been waiting for her long enough to have fallen asleep on the sofa, slumping sideways with his head cradled in the sofa's corner, and his legs hanging over the edge. One hand rested upon his chest, the other trailed off the cushion. A note of fear rose in Lana's heart until she heard him sigh, and saw the steady rise and fall of his chest beneath his hand. He was asleep, just asleep, and very much alive.
That morning she'd awakened to the sight of him lying asleep beside her. His features had been soft, relaxed, and his whole body radiated contentment. Had the alarm not went off he might have slept on, as he sometimes did when they met here in her apartment, until she fell asleep again herself. He'd wake her with a kiss. They'd make love, and try to resist the temptation to stay in bed all day.
She could see the change. His features were tense. His eyes rolled in REM dreams that obviously distressed him. Worry lines creased his brow and as Lana watched a muscle twitched in a jaw clenched tight. Though he slept, he did not rest easily.
Lana stood before him. It took little more than a flick of her finger to unbutton the bottom two buttons of his shirt. A layer of thick white gauze and tape were revealed beneath the red plaid. She hesitated. It would be a betrayal of trust to look.
Or would it?
He had not told her anything. She had seen the wound before.
Carefully she slipped her fingernail beneath the tape. The bandage pulled at his skin, and she stopped quickly. Clark did not stir.
Lana pulled the bandage back.
The bandage was the first lie, unspoken, but still a deception.
"So we return to this," she thought.
Her fingers ran lightly over the flawless surface of his skin. She traced the curve of his ribs. The X-rays had shown one clearly fractured by the bullet's passage, but now it had been made whole again. No wound, not a scratch, could be found. Clark had not only been resurrected, but he'd been completely healed.
She pushed the bandage down and smoothed the tape along its edges, sealing it as it had been. His shirt fell back as he mumbled in his sleep, and Lana sat down on the couch beside him, reaching out as if she had been shaking him awake.
"Clark?"
His eyes popped open. Blinking rapidly he sat up, alarmed, but upon seeing her he relaxed and smiled at her sheepishly.
"Guess I dozed off."
"Who could blame you," Lana said quietly. Her smile was not quite forced. "You had a rough day. Are you...feeling okay?"
Clark nodded around a yawn.
"What did the doctor say?"
She knew the Kents had never gone back to the SMC. She'd heard when the hospital contacted Jonathan Kent he claimed he would never let Clark into their hands again, and would be taking him to Metropolis instead. In effect, they had made it so people would question the competency of the doctors and not Clark's miraculous recovery. It perhaps wasn't quite so miraculous.
"I shouldn't do anything too strenuous for a while," he replied, but his eyes flickered sideways and she knew he was lying. No one had said any such thing.
Lana looked at him. He avoided her gaze until she reached over to take his hand. "Don't," she whispered. "Scare me like that again."
"Trust me," Clark smiled. "I don't plan on it."
He relaxed a little as she stroked his hand. She could still see the change in him. Whatever shackles he'd worn before, bound him once more. It was in the set of his shoulders, and the haunted look in his eyes. Where his body touched hers she could feel the tension. Had she held a bomb in her hand it would feel the same way; as if there were some great power within just waiting to be set free. It disturbed her.
She looked up to find him looking down at her. His fingers were gentle against her face, his kiss soothed away her worries. His affection could not be denied.
"All I remember," he whispered. "Is hearing your voice, and seeing you smile. I thought I was already in heaven."
Lana shook her head wryly. "You're feeding me a line."
"Yeah, but I thought it was a good one."
They laughed, but Clark quickly sobered. He stared at her longingly. Lana felt guilt warring with a sense of relief inside her. She couldn't sleep with him. Not now.
"Nothing too strenuous, remember." She got up from the couch. "I don't want you back in the hospital."
He blushed. "I wasn't thinking that...but...yeah. Maybe we should take it easy for a while."
Lana nodded. "Are you hungry?" she asked lightly. "Give me a minute and I'll make something."
"Sure."
She went into the bathroom and closed the door behind her. Quickly she flipped on the switch for the fan, and turned on the water in the sink.
A moment later she sat down on the edge of the tub, hiding her face in her arms to muffle the sound of her sobs. The grief that had encompassed her earlier overtook her once more. She couldn't hold it back any longer.
The Clark she'd always wanted, the one who told her the truth, who made her feel safe, was dead. At the center of her grief was her own guilt, shame, and horror because she could not help wondering if it would have been better for her to have nothing at all than for this other Clark to return.
"I'm afraid. I'm afraid of him," she whispered.
It took her some time to pull herself together. She washed her face, changed her shirt, and came out of the bathroom with an apology on her lips. The look on his face stopped her.
"Clark?"
He looked as if he'd been shot again and someone had poured salt in the wound. Grief twisted his features, and harshened his voice. "Lana, I..."
"What is it?"
"I better go."
He would not look at her. Instead he moved toward the door. She followed and he all but shut the door in her face. It brought her up short. Her first thought brought to her an impossibility - had he heard her?
Her breath caught in her throat as she flung open the door.
"Clark, wait!"
The stairs were empty, the alley deserted. He was gone as if he had never been there at all.
Lana quietly closed the door. She sat down on the sofa where the pillows retained Clark's warmth. She curled up in them, savoring that warmth and the faint scent she recognized as his that remained in the air. After a few minutes she picked up the phone and dialed his number. She didn't expect him to answer, but he did.
Reaching for a throw blanket, Lana curled up still further into the cushions. "Clark?"
"Yeah?"
"You didn't kiss me good-night," she said.
The relief in his voice was unmistakable.
"I'm sorry," he said, and after a pause, "I love you. You know that don't you?"
Lana wrapped her free arm around her knees. "I know. I love you too."
Seconds later she heard his quiet knock at her door and she got up to collect her kiss.