You'd better be able to come up with a good lie real fast, Pete warned himself as he crouched next to the sleeping Lex, his ear almost resting on his friend's chest. He was relieved that Lex didn't wake up but more deeply alarmed that his breathing was no easier. The meteor shower had made him highly susceptible to illness and slow to recover from injuries and their current living conditions, in a sub-basement of an abandoned Metropolis warehouse, were a far cry from a health resort.

That was one thing to worry about. Lionel's extended absence was another. He had told them not to worry, that he wasn't sure how long his reconnaissance would take, but Pete had started worrying last night. He himself had to make his way across the city to debrief the survivors of an Edge City resistance group and Lana, before heading out again with Chloe to retrieve listening devices they had left in an officers' barracks, had reported a rumor that Kal-El had come back to Metropolis unexpectedly. Unexpected Kal-El was still more cause to worry.

With another concerned glance around, he pulled on his looted uniform and climbed the ladder to the Metropolis streets.

Kal-El was taking the situation entirely in stride as he urged more coffee on Lionel. Lionel only hoped that he looked as though he were doing the same as he leaned back in his chair. "This is an unexpected sort of meeting, Clark."

He watched intently for even the tiniest sign of a response to his use of the old name. Kal-El looked at him blankly for a moment, and then said, as if it were obvious to even the dullest mind, "You're Lex's father." Abruptly, he pushed away from his chair and stood with his back to Lionel. "I don't think it's much consolation to you, but when I heard that he was dead-" He cleared his throat, "When I heard that he was dead, I actually cried that night."

He turned back to Lionel. "You saw how I burned Smallville to the ground myself, but I left the mansion standing, just as it was. I wanted it to be his house again." He sat down again, as if exhausted by a grief that time had turned into an intolerable weight. "It's yours if you want it, even if he's not coming back."

Taking an audible breath, he stared bleakly at the table. "They tell me what they think I want to know. As if they know what I want. Do you...do you know what really happened? Did he...was it true that he, that after he was wounded, he...lasted for four days, and that if, if I'd gotten to him with medical care in time, he'd have made it? But instead, it was...it was pretty bad for him?"

Lionel frantically searched his mind for the right answer, but it took a fraction of a second too long and Kal-El grabbed him by the shoulders and shook him, shouting, "You have to tell me!" Just as Lionel bit his lip with the pain of the grip, he let go and muttered a barely audible "sorry."

Lionel played for time. "They told you that?" Kal-El nodded and then stared into Lionel's eyes. "What is it you're not telling me?" After a pause, he whispered, and it sounded as fervent as any prayer Lionel had ever heard, "He's alive, isn't he? Lex is still alive." An expression of absolute joy crossed his face. "Listen, we'll bring him here, if there's anything he needs, or just someplace to rest, we can do that, or if there's someplace else he wants to go, I'll take care of it, he can have the best of, well, of everything, if he's still hurt or sick or anything like that."

"Clark-"

"This...it's a second chance. Not just for me and him, but for everything. I know I've made a lot of mistakes but if I've got him here, I can start again. It's not too late, is it?" The eyes of the man who ruled the planet pleaded with Lionel for the answer.