Lionel was even slightly relieved to find that the trout under the covered dish was not excellent. It was quite good, far better than anything he had eaten for quite some time, but that was it. A perfect meal would have been the crowning touch on an almost laughable upheaval of his expectations.
There was nothing else to laugh about, though. He'd been identified and it was impossible to believe that this was a sign of Kal-El having an entire change of heart and that the delay in returning was because he was dismantling his regime and it took a bit longer than anticipated. This had to be just a cat-and-mouse game, enlivened, at least for the cat, by leaving him confused and in suspense.
The question now was whether he had any possibility of escape or sabotage. If he pretended to cooperate in order to save his life, or to break down during torture, he might be able to feed them useless or outdated information while sneaking in important misinformation. He admitted to himself that he had only one real goal: to keep Lex, Pete, Lana, and Chloe safe. Lex was his own child and the others he had come to love almost as deeply. And that was where guilt came in. If he had tried to care about Clark Kent, instead of just trying not to voice his objections, if he had paid more attention to the boy's need for attention and acceptance than to his background, attitude, and greed, would all this have happened?
Wearily, he changed into the soft-fleeced sweats that hung in the bathroom and climbed into the bed. Thoughts of his small group's safety raced in his head but the thought of his own responsibility stood solidly, unchanging, in the middle, and the other thoughts were as shaped and driven by that as though they were planets orbiting a sun, incapable of escaping its gravity.
The knock on the door woke him from a sound sleep into disorientation, but the next, a moment later, brought him to full alertness. "Come in!" he called, getting up hastily to avoid the appearance of having been caught totally unawares, for his own dignity rather than in the hopes of deception.
A young man stood in the doorway, a tray with a pot and two mugs held against his side. It was Kal-El.