GENESIS

EPISODE TWENTY-TWO

We often do good in order that we may do evil with impunity.

Francois De La Rochefoucauld

Lionel Luthor slid his identification card through the slot, frowning impatiently while the computer processed his code, correlated it with his password and finally sent the necessary signal for the door in front of him to open. The highly automated and vastly secure facility was located in the West Bottoms; just one of dozens of old, dilapidated structures that once housed ornate department stores and expensive apartments back in the 1920's. During that time period, Metropolis had only a fledgling downtown, while it's twin across the river, Kansas City, was at its prime – cattle money filled its coffers while the sweet sounds of Jazz filled the air. Sadly, once the stockyards closed their doors, Kansas City stagnated, and eventually people began to migrate across the river to Metropolis, where a spark of new life and enterprise was just taking hold.

Luthorcorp was responsible for seeding much of that life. Its foundations were built at the very moment the rest of the country began to notice the city. And once Luthorcorp became the city's largest employer, feeding the thriving economy and making waves in corporate circles all over the world, Metropolis was well-prepared to take its rightful place at the helm of America's most influential and populated cities. It outshined the Big Apple, and had more stars in its crown than the City of Angels. And Lionel was well aware of his large part in creating the city's destiny; even if there were those who might forget it, he would not. Like a king of a small country, he jealously guarded both land and denizens of Metropolis as if each and every molecule that created them belonged to him, were owned by him. He was loathe to relinquish control of his domain, even if it were to his own flesh and blood. This was why certain measures were being set in motion in order to assure his continued dominance.

There were those who might refer to Lionel as an evil man, but he preferred to see himself as a pragmatist – there was nothing he wasn't prepared for, no recourse that he didn't already have a plan waiting in the wings for. Occasionally, life enjoyed matching his will in a game of chess, to which he always came out the victor. Even death was a dominion that would hold no sway over Lionel Luthor, of that he would make certain. Little scared him; such certainty came with the power and wealth that was at his fingertips. Lionel knew that there were those who claimed he'd sold his soul to the Devil, but such rumors were complete and utter nonsense. There was nothing, not man or beast or nature itself, that had such control over him. Besides, if anyone was the holder of souls, it was him.

"Mr. Luthor." Dr. Teng turned in her chair to stand and greet him as he entered the lab. "We weren't expecting you."

"I'm on my way to Smallville," he explained, glancing over the charts laid out on the table. "And thought I would stop in to check on the subject."

"Everything is on schedule. At the current feeding rate, the subject should be a full grown, healthy adult male within four months."

"I would prefer to test him away from the lab before we reach that stage, doctor," Lionel informed her, picking up one of the spreadsheets and glancing over the data. "It's important that we know the body is able to function away from feeding tubes and lab tests."

"Of course, Mr. Luthor. But aren't you afraid he will be discovered?"

Lionel smiled. "That's part of the test, Dr. Teng."

She frowned, apparently not understanding his plans; unfortunately for her, Lionel had no intention of sharing them for the moment.

He handed the spreadsheet he was holding over to her. "And what of the procedure?"

"We had our second successful surgery yesterday," Teng informed him. "The primates have responded perfectly. But, I would feel much more comfortable, Mr. Luthor, testing on something a little more advanced than monkeys."

Lionel raised an eyebrow in amusement. "Dr. Teng, are you suggesting that you wish to move the testing of this procedure on to human subjects?"

She shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze, her personal moral structure obviously at war with her scientific mind. Besides, Lionel knew that she very much wanted to be paid – she had debts back in her own country that needed to be cleared before she could ever hope to return home. An unsuccessful procedure meant no payment. And for Lionel, it meant a whole hell of a lot worse.

Smiling at her inability to form a reply to his answer, Lionel assured her, "I'm certain my people can locate some… willing subjects for your tests. I should have them to you by next week."

Teng let out a soft breath and nodded, but still seemed unwilling to speak.

"Is there anything else that you need to complete your work, Doctor?"

She shook her head. "No. Everything is proceeding according to schedule."

Nodding, Lionel stepped away from her, moving up to the plate glass that overlooked the tiny, enclosed sterile environment. A technician was monitoring life signs on the equipment, while a nurse hovered beside the incubator. Cradled within the confines lay an infant, ten months old in appearance, five days old in reality. Lionel smiled at the child, pleased to see how healthy and active he appeared to be.

"Are the programs working successfully?" He inquired.

Teng stepped up beside him. "We began feeding them into the child's brainwaves yesterday. All preliminary tests suggest that he will have a post-graduate education, as well as full knowledge of each of the skills you proposed by the time he reaches adulthood."

"Good." Lionel smiled. "I would hate the young man's body to be out of shape because he wasn't properly trained in physical fitness."

The doctor glanced up at him, expression guarded. "I would warn you again, Mr. Luthor, that what you wish to do is dangerous and could end up in your death."

"I have faith in you, Doctor Teng," Lionel replied, turning to head toward the exit. He looked over his shoulder at her. "Besides, better to die in the pursuit of science than as a feeble man in his bed. Hmmm?"


"…Scientists are calling today's impact one of the most significant astronomical events of the last century. The enormous solar flare has already caused power surges and... "

"Lex? Hey, Lex, are you hearing this?"

"I'm not deaf, Hudson," came the reply from behind the desk. "But I am busy."

"According to NASA, the sun took a direct hit from a comet today," she informed him from her perch on the couch in front of the TV. It was a small concession Lex allowed her when he was too busy to join her in the theatre – he had a TV brought in so she could spend time with him in the study. Even though she was really supposed to be studying.

"It's caused one of the biggest solar flares ever to be recorded."

"Mmmm. And this affects me how?"

She flashed him a quick frown over her shoulder. "I'm just saying. It's kind of a relief to hear about a cosmic disaster that has nothing to do with me."

"Hudson, you are a cosmic disaster."

"Oh, I get it. Too busy to hear about anything interesting, but not too busy to insult me." She shifted on the couch to face him. "Lex, let's do something."

"You're supposed to be doing your homework," he commented, not looking up from the monitor.

"I've done most of it…"

"Most isn't all." He glanced over at her. "Finish all of it, and we'll go somewhere."

"Promise?"

Lex sighed with annoyance but gave her a quick smile. "Promise."

Hudson looked back at the TV, catching more information about the solar flares before returning her attention to the book and paper on her lap. She should have been thankful that she was getting this time with Lex, whether they were actually having any fun or not. He spent so much time in Metropolis anymore that she hardly ever had the chance to see him. It would be easy for her to run to the city over lunch or on the weekends, but both Lex and her parents had cautioned her against doing so too often; it increased her chances of someone noticing her frequent and too-fast trips. Only on those evenings when Lex decided to return to Smallville earlier than midnight did Hudson get the chance to come over, sit with him in the study and enjoy a little time together. When they couldn't actually talk, she at least had the pleasure of knowing that Lex still wanted her presence in the room.

Quickly, she sped through the rest of her math problems, and then tucked her book away, announcing, "Done!"

Lex glanced up and gave her a frustrated expression before closing his laptop. "Very well. What would you like to do?"

Hudson nibbled on her lip for a moment before suggesting, "Well, I could take you on a trip… "

He raised an eyebrow at the suggestion but didn't reply.

Encouraged by his reaction, she continued, "I mean, I don't know how it works but somehow when I have someone with me, the speed doesn't affect them or hurt them or anything. And then you could see how fast I go and we could go somewhere cool like LA or New York or something."

"Interesting proposition." Lex stood and walked over to the couch, slipping his hands into the pockets of his slacks as he stared down at her. "I'm a bit surprised at the offer, though."

"Why?"

He shrugged. "I'm not certain. Perhaps because you've kept the majority of your abilities to yourself. Sure, you've told me about them, but you haven't exactly been forthcoming with the demonstrations."

Hudson glanced down at her hands. "I… I guess it's because I can't help but feel like a circus freak or something, you know? I just… I don't want to be put on display."

Lex reached out to take her hand, pulling her to her feet. "I would never put you on display, Hudson," he told her softly, fingers moving to tuck a strand of hair behind her ear. "But I can't help my curiosity. And I'm not going to apologize for that."

"You shouldn't have to." She shook her head and tried to smile. "You've been very patient with me. And I think I'm ready to share it all with you."

Smiling slowly, Lex began, "I'm glad to – "

"Well, there's a delightful face I haven't seen in a while."

Hudson jumped back from Lex as Lionel strode into the study, fear immediately flowing through her with his presence. She would never allow herself to forget that he had had her blood in his possession, and while it was entirely possible that he didn't know it was hers, there was still the chance that Helen told him before handing it over. Nothing explained why he hadn't come after her or done anything about it yet, and Hudson feared doing something that might change his mind.

"How have you been, Miss Kent?"

"Ummm, fine. Thank you, Mr. Luthor." She turned and quickly began shoving her homework into her backpack. "I probably ought to get home, Lex. Mom is expecting me for dinner. Thank you for the help with my schoolwork."

Lex nodded and took her arm, guiding her toward the door. "I'll stop by later," he told her softly, hand slipping around her back, briefly caressing. "I'm sure he won't be here long."

"Okay." Hudson turned, smiling up at Lex nervously before leaning up to kiss his cheek. "See you."

Quickly, she hurried down the hall toward the door.

Lex watched her go, silently mulling over the change in her reluctance to share her life with him. Just knowing the truth should have been enough, but he was quickly discovering that wasn't the case. He wanted to be a part of it all, to know everything; the Kents really couldn't protect her the way that he could, but he needed information in order to do so. She was reticent when questioned about her biological parents and the planet she came from, and he hoped that her decision to truly share her abilities with him would mean a change in that as well. He understood that she didn't know everything just yet, but was hoping that with his help, her cooperation and a lot of research, he'd be able to help her understand how she got to Earth, why she was there and what her presence meant.

"I'm surprised to see you've renewed your acquaintanceship with Miss Kent," Lionel intoned behind Lex, the unmistakable clinking of the brandy decanter following his words.

Lex turned, shrugging as he watched his father pour the liquor into a tumbler. "There was nothing to renew. Our friendship was never called into question."

"Even after everything that happened with Helen?" Lionel raised his eyebrows in surprise. "She must be a very understanding young woman." He took a quick swallow of the brandy and waved a hand toward his son. "How was your session with Dr. Foster?"

Walking back over to his desk, Lex replied, "Fine. She hasn't declared me insane yet, if that's what you're looking for."

"And I would never expect her to do so," Lionel told him with a slight frown. "If I could relieve you from the sessions, I would, son, but Lloyd's of London – "

"Yes, I've heard it all before," Lex interrupted, busying himself with papers that didn't need to be rearranged. He noticed that a page of Hudson's notes on the Fall of the Rome had slipped in between his outline on research development at the plant. There were barely-legible scribbling scrawled across the lines, interrupted by the occasional doodle of birds, rabbits, slightly square-shaped cows and a car that had vroom-vroom! written after it. In the margins were the words 'Lex knows more than the text books' and 'His Empire would certainly never have fallen'. He grinned as he remembered having said those comments to her during their lesson.

"You say that as if you don't believe me." Lionel was staring at Lex, scowling slightly over the tumbler as he took a sip.

Lex lifted his gaze at his father's words, a biting retort on the tip of his tongue. He held it in check, reminding himself that earning his father's animosity after having settled things between them was not the goal. There were things to be learned from Lionel Luthor, be they good or bad, and if he ever wanted to one day best the man, he was going to have to learn to think like him. Whether or not such a thing were possible remained to be seen. Sometimes Lex didn't believe his father thought along the same lines as normal people.

"Why wouldn't I believe you, Dad?" Lex asked, folding Hudson's sheet of notes up and slipping it into his pocket. "It isn't like you've lied to me before or anything."

"And things were going so well," Lionel lamented, spreading his hands before him. "It seems whenever you spend time with Miss Kent, you come away with an attitude, son."

Lex chuckled at that. "The farm girl teaches the rich boy how to have an attitude?" He scoffed. "That's stretching it, even for you."

Lex glanced up to find Lionel smirking slightly, gaze unfocused and thoughtful. Something about the look bothered him, but he couldn't explain why. Maybe it was simply their discussion about Hudson that left him uneasy. He didn't want his father thinking about her, let alone discussing her. In fact, the further he could keep his father from the Kents, the happier and safer he'd feel.


Lex had barely rapped his knuckles against the screen door when Martha Kent was already calling out to him to come on inside. Pulling the door open, he stepped into the kitchen only to realize the family was smack in the middle of preparing for dinner – Martha darting back and forth between the stove and refrigerator, Hudson chopping vegetables at the center island, and Jonathan washing his hands in the sink.

"I'm sorry," Lex instantly apologized. "I didn't realize it was so close to your evening meal."

Hudson rolled her eyes at him. "Oh, please. Your special high-powered Luthor nose picked up the scent of taco meat back at the mansion. You knew damn well what time it was."

"I'm not even going to dignify that with a response, Hudson Kent," Lex replied blandly, refusing to show the shades of his embarrassment at such an accusation to the Kents.

Martha gave Hudson a playful smack as she moved past her. "Our daughter seems to believe that since she lives her life for eating, everyone else should as well." She stopped in front of the stove and picked up a plastic fork to stir at the beef that was simmering in the frying pan. "You're free to join us, Lex. There's plenty of food."

"I don't want to impose –" His comment ended abruptly as a chunk of onion slapped him on the cheek. He caught it before it fell to the floor and tossed it onto the island before glaring over at Hudson, who was the only one in the kitchen currently chopping onions.

"You know it's no imposition, Lex," Martha laughed and shook her head. "After all, weren't you the one asking to be a part of this family? Take your coat off and stay awhile."

"Yeah. You can chop the lettuce." Hudson held up the head of crisp, green lettuce and waved it at him.

The whole idea of a family preparing a meal together was one Hudson had introduced to Lex. As were homemade tacos. As a teen in Metropolis, Lex had spent more than his share of late nights visiting Taco Bell after a particularly good buzz. He'd never touched Mexican food in any other form until dinner with Hudson and her family when they first became friends, and he discovered homemade tacos were one of her favorite foods. After a sampling, Lex was surprised to discover they could be considered one of his favorite foods, too. Then again, the Kents were also responsible for introducing him to the truth of the existence of aliens, so he supposed it all kind of made sense in some weird way.

As usual, Jonathan didn't say anything one way or the other as to Lex being welcome to dinner, but he did nod as he walked by him and gave him some semblance of a smile. Slipping off his light jacket, Lex hung it beside the door, then moved over to join Hudson.

"Watch this," she told him, and her hand moved so fast that it was little more than a blur as it finished chopping the onion in less than a second.

"H.C., stop playing in the kitchen," her mother admonished. "It's too dangerous."

"Like I'd let the knife slip and cut Lex open, spewing his guts all over my food and effectively ruining my dinner," she huffed.

"Yeah. Wouldn't want to ruin your dinner with my death or anything," Lex remarked sarcastically.

She gave him a grin, then held the knife out to him, handle first. "Here. You can do the honors with the lettuce." She paused, eyeing him a moment. "You, uh, do remember how, right?"

Lex snatched the knife from her hand and set the head of lettuce in place on top of the cutting board. He glanced over at the tiny slivers of onion once more, wondering if the amazing feats that Hudson performed would ever become less than astounding. Thinking it doubtful, he carefully began slicing the lettuce into perfect uniform strips, receiving a groan of annoyance from the girl beside him for his trouble.

"I'm sorry about my father's impromptu visit," he told her softly after a few seconds passed silently between them.

She shrugged and leaned her chin on her hand as she watched him work. "I had to get home for chores anyway. What did he want?"

"He claims he just wanted to check up on me. But I doubt he came all of the way out here to do what he could have done with a phone call." Lex flashed her a quick look. "According to my people, he's been spending a lot more time out at the caves, lately."

"Your people?" Hudson's voice was a hushed whisper. "Lex, do you actually have your father followed?"

He shrugged. "He has me followed."

"Oh. There's a comforting thought." She glanced over to the table where her father was sitting, going through the mail. "Why don't we discuss this later, hmm?"

"Fine with me."

"The meat is done," Martha called out. "H.C., how are the toppings coming?"

"Almost done – that is, unless Lex chops off a finger."

Martha smiled at Lex, flashing him a look of sympathy before she began spooning the taco meat into a bowl. Sliding off of the stool she'd been sitting on, Hudson began gathering the little bowls of toppings scattered around the island and carried them over to the table. He hadn't really meant to do so, but Lex found himself surreptitiously watching her movements as she helped her mother prepare for dinner; the kiss they'd shared the week before had been just enough to remind Lex of what he'd been missing for the last six months.

Not that he'd been living the life of a monk since his return from the island – sex was an escape, after all, a few moments of bliss in which to forget the anger and pain that plagued his life. Since returning, Lex had spent far too much of his time trying to forget about those three wasted months of his life, wondering at what juncture he'd made his most fatal mistake, hating the woman he'd made his wife and trying to forget that the one person he believed in had been lying to him during their entire relationship. Even his work at Luthorcorp wasn't quite enough to keep his mind occupied with other problems, and his only moments of peace came during quiet meditation in his study to the sounds of the ocean, a good fuck with some nameless socialite in Metropolis and the occasional moment like this, with the Kents. That was something he didn't understand, since they were the cause of the majority of his troubles at the moment if he really sat and thought about it; and still just being here with them as he was now was oddly comforting.

And Hudson, as usual, was the key to everything. Her lies had pushed him blindly into a relationship that almost destroyed him, and her truths had come almost too late, leaving but a thread of the sanity he still clung to hanging within him. He still wanted her, that much was certain. Even now, standing here in her parents' kitchen, with her dad sitting only feet away from him, Lex wanted to pound himself between her sweet thighs until his name was the only word she could speak. Part of him wanted to see if there were any possible way of hurting her; and part of him wanted nothing more than to simply get lost in her touch and her sweet kisses and pretend the last year had never occurred.

"…you're waiting for."

Lex snapped out of his reverie and glanced over at Hudson who was watching him with undisguised amusement. "I'm sorry. What?"

"I said the cows are already home, if that's what you're waiting for." She pointed a slim finger at the lettuce that was still sitting in a pile on the cutting board.

Barely refraining from rolling his eyes – a horrible habit he'd picked up from her – Lex scooped the lettuce into an empty nearby bowl and handed it over to her before wiping his hands on the dishtowel. He followed her to the table and sat down in his usual spot, across from Hudson, and Martha immediately began passing the bowls of food around to him.

"So, Lex, have you settled back in to your life?" Hudson's mother asked with a soft smile as she sprinkled freshly shredded cheese onto her tacos.

"Yes," Lex replied instantly with a nod. They didn't need to know about the nightmares that kept him awake at nights or the need he sometimes felt to just start screaming in the middle of a conversation. This life that he'd settled back into… wasn't much of one. He supposed that everyone probably felt as if he should just be happy to be alive, and that was why he never told them his true feelings. Why he never admitted to that part of him that wished he'd never been found.

"There are rumors going around that the Sharks might be sold?" Jonathan commented, glancing over in Lex's direction.

"Oh! That would suck!" Hudson gave Lex one of her perfect pouts. "You can't let your dad sell the Sharks. They're like a Metropolis institution!"

"I'll be certain to tell my father that you said so," Lex replied with a smirk at her before glancing at Jonathan. "Personally, I believe it's just a rumor to build interest back up in the team among the fans. Sales have been slacking off the last two years, and nothing will motivate fans like the fear of losing their team. With enough protests and rallies, including coverage in the media, season ticket and individual game sales will likely soar, and a story will run at the end of the season that the negotiations fell through, and the team will remain in Metropolis. For the time being."

Jonathan shook his head as he took a sip of iced tea. "Nothing like a well-placed lie to boost your bottom line."

"Most of business is a lie, Mr. Kent," Lex replied as he stared down at his taco, wondering if he'd catch hell again for trying to eat it with his fork. "It's all based on bluffing."

"Sounds like high school."

Lex looked over at Hudson with a hint of a smile. "It's really not that much different from high school."

"See?" She smiled at her parents. "Who needs a degree?"

All three adults replied at once, "You do."

Hudson made a face at their reply, and returned to her meal.

Lex smiled at her response, watching her silently for a long moment. He realized that things were different, that sitting here at the table having dinner with the Kent family wasn't like it had been in the past. Sure, her parents were still cautious of his role in their daughter's life, and maybe they had every right to be, but the entire family seemed more relaxed. There wasn't this barrier of secrets between them, with the Kents continually walking on eggshells around him and his own anger at their distrust mutually fighting for domination. If he weren't already wary of how long this peace would last, he'd almost be foolish enough to believe he were considered a part of the family.


Hudson sat down on the threadbare couch, watching Lex as he moved up the last step into the loft. She was pleased to notice that the physical affects from his time on the island had become non-existent – the color was back in his face and he'd regained the weight he'd lost, filling out an already far too lanky frame. Unfortunately, the emotional scars were still quite deep, and Hudson knew there were things he hadn't shared with her.

They were obvious in the tense set of his shoulders, and the ever-present wary gaze that he now regarded everything and every one with. She wanted him to smile again, to laugh, to not look as if all he wanted was for the entire world and every person on it to simply disappear. She wanted him to be happy again.

"You don't have to rush back home, do you?" She asked as he stopped beside her desk, picking up her science book and flipping through it.

"No." He shook his head, tossed the book back to the desk and slipped his hands into the pockets of his slacks as he turned to face her. "Why?"

Taking a deep breath, Hudson stood. "I thought we could go somewhere – I mean, that I could take you somewhere. To one of my favorite places."

"You aren't going to try to make me climb up into that ridiculous tree house again, are you?" Lex asked with a sardonic smile.

Hudson rolled her eyes. "No. But, that doesn't mean you shouldn't try it, at least once. Boys are supposed to like tree houses."

"Yes. Well… " Lex ran a hand over his head and glanced away. "I'm not you're typical 'boy'."

And for that, she was beyond grateful, though she knew Lex wouldn't accept such a compliment. Truthfully, Hudson doubted she would have trusted Lex as much as she did if he were just like everyone else. But she knew he understood how it felt to be different, to feel alone, to be afraid to tell anyone what you were truly thinking and feeling. He knew about secrets, and maybe that was the only reason he forgave her for keeping hers.

"I'm not taking you to the tree house, though," Hudson told him. "It's better than that."

Lex eyed her somewhat suspiciously. "You're being very secretive," he pointed out.

Hudson smiled and held out her hand. "Do you trust me?"

If he didn't, he certainly didn't show it. Instead, he placed his hand in hers and responded, "Yes."

She was surprised, but she kept that to herself. Trust was the last thing she expected to earn from him, but she supposed if she held her past actions up against those of others in his life, she still came out on top, secrets or not. It wasn't as if she'd ever tried to kill him or anything.

Pulling him close, she gave him a grin and wrapped her arms around him. "I hope this doesn't bother you," she began before slipping one arm under his legs and lifting him up.

"Hudson, what – " Lex began struggling.

"Trust me," she told him, cradling his body as close to her as possible. "Tuck your head against me, and hold on. You're going to be fine."

And then she sped out of the barn.

Her speed was one of the most baffling aspects of Hudson's abilities to her. While they all confused her and she never tried very hard to figure out why and how they worked, her ability to travel at the speeds she did was certainly cause for a question or two. From her perspective, it was a lot like moving through time while everything around her came to a stop. She could see every little detail of the countryside around her, birds in mid-flight, trees bent in a wind she couldn't feel; she felt Lex gasp against her, and then realized that even he was able to see what she was, and that was something she'd been counting on. In the past, no one she'd carried in this manner had ever been conscious – Lex was the first. But all of her past passengers, including Lex, had always survived her speed with no obvious affects.

The trip to the top of a butte in the middle of Utah – a trip of almost 1,050 miles last time she checked Mapquest – passed by in a blur. Hudson could have made it in less time, but she didn't wish to push it in case something went wrong and she couldn't run the risk of harming Lex. When she came to a halt, she held him only a moment longer before slowly setting him to his feet. He stumbled at first and she reached out to grab him, but he waved her away, eyes staring in shock out across the empty landscape before finally swinging around to face her.

"What – what the hell was – " He glanced at his watch, swaying dangerously enough for Hudson to take hold of his arm to help steady him.

"Are you all right?" She asked nervously, chewing on her lower lip. "I've never done that with anyone conscious before. I slowed down, so I wouldn't hurt you."

"I'm fine." He closed his eyes and pressed his fingers along the bridge of his nose. "You're fast."

Hudson bit her lower lip and nodded. "Yeah."

"How fast?"

"I don't know. I've never really bothered to make the calculations."

"You should." Lex opened his eyes, focusing on her. "I might enter you in the Kentucky Derby," he teased.

"Wrong species. For both horse and rider, actually."

Lex smiled slightly at her response. "You can't tell me you actually get a thrill out of my cars," he commented, waving a hand toward her. "I know I've just been ruined for them."

Smiling, Hudson turned away, kicking at a rock that went sailing over the edge of the cliff. And kept going. She watched it land in a puff of dirt about a mile out. "It's not really the same thing."

"That it isn't." Lex moved up beside her, and they watched the sun slowly sink behind the horizon spread before them.

"So, what is this place?" He asked finally, reaching out to place his hand against her back, fingers slowly caressing.

She shrugged. "Just somewhere that I come when I want to get away." Giving him a small smile, she sat down, tucking her legs beneath her. "I first found this place after my dad told me the… truth about what I was. I've been coming here ever since."

Lex sat down beside her, resting his arm around a raised knee. "How old were you?"

"Thirteen." She tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, her face reddening slightly as she told him, "Something happened at school that not only embarrassed, but kind of angered me. Anyway, I was there in the cafeteria, just so upset I couldn't see straight, and the next thing I knew, I'd set my milk carton on fire. I knew it was my fault because my eyes had kind of itched and stung just before it occurred. Of course, the principal explained it away by saying someone in the vicinity had matches, but I knew better. I went home and… dad told me everything. He showed me the ship."

"Thirteen," Lex repeated. "Not a very good age to be told you're an alien."

"I don't think there is a good age to be told you're an alien."

"Mmmm. Probably not." Lex slipped a hand behind her neck, petting her skin gently while his fingers twisted in the lengths of her hair. "Thank you for sharing this with me, Hudson. It means a lot."

"I just… I don't want any more secrets between us, Lex. I want to know that I can talk to you about anything."

Lex nodded, and Hudson felt his fingers tightening across the back of her neck, pulling her toward him. "You can."

She jumped slightly as his lips touched hers, and she couldn't help but remember what happened the last time he kissed her. Brow furrowing, she reached up between them, pulling away from the kiss, her fingers pressing against his lips to stop him from moving back in.

"Is this for real this time?" She asked softly. "Not just another lesson?"

Lex didn't answer. Instead, he pulled her fingers away and leaned in for another, deeper kiss. His tongue insistently pushed past her lips, and Hudson whimpered in capitulation, suddenly not caring if it were another lesson or not. She scrambled up on to her knees, never breaking away from his mouth, arms winding about his shoulders as she climbed into his lap. She felt Lex's hand curl into her hair, tugging and pulling her closer, as his teeth grazed against her lips. She knew then that he was realizing something she'd always wanted to tell him – he couldn't hurt her. She was the one who had to be careful, to hold back the need that was swelling within her until she thought she would explode from it, but not him.

"I've missed you so much," Lex whispered into her mouth, slipping a hand beneath her shirt to slide against her stomach.

Hudson choked back a sob at his words, knowing there was no way possible for her to express just how much she longed to have him touch and kiss her again. She figured that someday she would have just dried up into a little husk while she waited, and maybe he just didn't understand that she would have waited for this moment forever, if he'd forced her to.

She was working at the buttons of his shirt as Lex pressed her back against the rock beneath them. He kissed the corners of her mouth, her cheeks, her eyelids, the edge of her jaw. She arched her head back and he brought his mouth to her neck, teeth gripping the skin harder than before but always, always his tongue followed, caressing and cooling as if in fear of harming her. Hudson's body shuddered under the onslaught; it didn't hurt but the sensation was different, deeper, sending mini-bolts of electricity right to her bones with each bite. Lex worked his way up to her right ear, nipping at the lobe before drawing it into his mouth, each wave of teeth and tongue causing separate ripples of pleasure. In the months that they'd been apart, Hudson had forgotten how good Lex was at this; that he could play her body like a fine-tuned instrument, fingers brushing over chords of skin, like the stroke of a harp across her ribcage.

"We should probably go back to the mansion," Lex whispered into her ear. "This can't be comfortable."

"I don't care." Hudson yanked impatiently at the last button on his shirt, only to hear the unmistakable pop of it tearing off. "Please, Lex…"

She felt his lips curve into a smile against her cheek, and he shifted over her, the length of his erection pressing into her thigh. "I'm not in the mood to wait, either."


Lex drew his fingers down the curve of Hudson's stomach, circling her belly button and then moving across her abdomen. His hand turned, knuckles brushing lightly against her hip and thigh, and then he brought his hand back up to do it all over again. Closing his eyes, he listened to the sound of her heart beating beneath her breast – the thumping sound slightly faster and irregular compared to a human's heartbeat. So many things were explained now that he knew the truth; why her skin was so warm, even in the middle of winter, why she never seemed to tire, never seemed capable of eating too much. The many, many times she saved his life in impossible circumstances.

Lifting his head, he turned to look at her. She was staring up at the night sky, gaze thoughtful. He reached up to touch the underside of her chin. "A million dollars for your thoughts."

Hudson smiled. "Isn't it supposed to be a penny?"

"Luthors don't do anything cheap, Angel."

Laughing, Hudson angled her head to meet his gaze. "Maybe you should try. I don't know what I'd do with a million dollars."

"Your life is that perfect?"

"I have you back in it, don't I?"

Lex just shook his head and returned to laying against her breast. "So, your thoughts for free, then."

Hudson sighed, and grew silent once more, and Lex wondered if she had been thinking something she'd rather not share with him. It wasn't the best way to rekindle their relationship.

"I was just wondering what Krypton was like," she told him quietly after a few moments. "Did it look like Earth? What were the people like? Were my parents very much in love?"

"Is the information you know about it on the walls in the caves?" He found himself asking.

"No. Everything there is… well, mainly stories made up by the Kawatchee. I learned about Krypton from a man named Virgil Swann – "

"The Virgil Swann?" Lex lifted his head to look at her in astonishment at the name of the billionaire.

"You've heard of him?" Hudson looked perplexed.

"I only did a paper on him back in school," Lex told her. "He was my idol for years. I always thought I could use my father's money for scientific research as Dr. Swann does, for learning about the universe around us, and our purpose here. Of course, things don't always turn out the way you expect when you're young."

"There's nothing stopping you from doing such research someday, Lex," Hudson commented. "When Luthorcorp is yours."

"Sometimes I think my father is going to live forever." Lex kissed the soft skin beneath his lips before asking, "So, what did Dr. Swann tell you?"

Her fingers moved over the top of his scalp gently. "He said that one of his receiving stations picked up a signal the day my ship arrived. He spent years trying to translate it before finally discovering a mathematical key hidden within it."

"What did it say?"

She paused, breath catching for a moment before she answered, "This is Kaela-El of Krypton. Our infant daughter, our last hope. Please protect her and deliver her from evil."

"Your parents loved you. They wanted to protect you."

"Hmm." Hudson gave a non-committal shrug. "He said he followed the signal billions of miles into space, hoping to find a point of origin. But at the end, there was nothing there; nothing left of the planet I came from."

Lex leaned up on his elbow to meet her gaze. "I'm sorry, Angel." He watched her as she continued to gaze up at the stars. Finally, he asked, "What about the ship? Are there any clues – "

"I destroyed it, Lex," she told him, shifting her gaze to his. "Just before I left for Metropolis."

"You – what? Why?"

Sighing, she sat up and reached for her clothes, slowly dressing as she explained, "You remember Walden and his ranting about me? Well, I don't know how far off he was." She fumbled with her bra for a moment before Lex reached out to help her. "Thanks… Anyway, the ship was – it started speaking to me. It claimed to contain the consciousness of my father or something within it. Hell, the caves claim the same thing –"

"The caves talk to you?" Lex asked in disbelief.

Hudson shrugged into her jeans, ignoring him. "It kept telling me that I had to leave, that it was time to accept my destiny and that if I didn't do what it said, it would harm the people I loved – you, my parents. So I used a piece of Kryptonite and destroyed it." Standing, she yanked her top over her head. "That's what caused the explosion on the farm. And everything went wrong." She took a breath and glanced over at him.

"Why didn't you just ignore it?" Lex asked, picking up his clothes to dress as well. "Surely a ship couldn't do that much damage."

"You'd be surprised." Hudson frowned, gazing out into the darkness. "If my father truly programmed it to do and say those things… " She shook her head. "I don't know. I don't know what kind of people my parents were or what they truly meant to accomplish by sending me here."

"By the sound of the message Swann translated, it seems they only wished to protect you."

"Maybe." Hudson glanced over at him. "But how do you explain everything else? How do you explain what the caves did to Walden?"

Lex shrugged as he buttoned his shirt. "I don't know, Hudson. But that's why we should do research. I can help you – every ounce of information I can gather is at your disposal." He reached out and took her hands into his. "Perhaps with Swann's help, we can discover your reasons for being here, and what the future holds for you."

Hudson appeared hesitant, and Lex couldn't understand why. Surely she was eager to answer the questions regarding her existence. Who wouldn't be? He understood that she was fearful of what could happen to her, but Lex always believed that one could be prepared for any eventuality as long as they had the proper information. And without that, he couldn't protect her the way he hoped to.

"We should probably get back," she said, ignoring his offer with her obvious change of the subject. "It's getting cold, and I don't want you to suffer any relapses of your malaria."

"Don't worry. I'm completely cured."

She furrowed her brow at his comment. "How is that possible? I thought malaria stayed with you for the rest of your life?"

Lex gave her a small smile. "Yet another benefit from your arrival, I suspect." He leaned in and kissed her quickly. "You're a miracle, Hudson Kent. And I'm glad to have you in my life."

Returning his smile, Hudson reached out to gather him into her arms. "Does that mean you're going to get used to being carried?"

"Not likely," he scoffed.

She smiled and turned to speed back to Smallville. Taking a few steps, she slowed and stopped, expression falling into a frown.

"What is it?" Lex asked.

"I… my speed is gone."

She took a few more steps, jogging slightly, until she neared the edge of the bluff, and she stopped again, setting Lex to his feet. He could see that she was about two seconds short of outright panic.

"Has this happened before?" He questioned in a calm voice.

"Only when Eric took my powers." At Lex's curious gaze, she amended, "Long story. But when you asked me that first time about hitting me with your car? I really didn't have my powers then. I was as weak as you… er, that didn't come out the way I meant it to."

Lex waved a hand in dismissal. "But you had your abilities only a few hours ago."

"Yeah. And I still have my strength." She worried her lower lip before taking a few running steps again, only to be moving no faster than any other being on the planet. It was obviously frustrating her.

"Don't worry," Lex told her, pulling out his cell phone. "I'll have the helicopter pick us up, and when we get back to Smallville, we'll try to figure this out. All right?"

"Yeah."

Sighing, Hudson kicked at the ground beneath her feet in aggravation, then looked at her hands, as if they had the solution to the mystery of her missing speed. Lex watched her quietly as he called the transportation office at Luthorcorp and arranged for the helicopter to pick them up. Of course, giving them directions on how to locate them proved a challenge, but Hudson seemed assured of the fact that they were located on a bluff northwest of I-70 at mile marker 203.

Lex took her word for it.


"So there we were, stuck in the middle of Utah. And me with no way to get us home." Hudson sighed and sipped at her orange juice. "It was kind of humiliating."

Martha smiled and patted her daughter's arm as she moved past her with the platter of pancakes. "I'm sure Lex doesn't think any less of you, honey." She glanced back at Hudson and winked. "After all, you're back together, aren't you?"

Hudson grinned, face warming a little as she caught a glare from her dad. "Yeah. Yeah, we are. I think everything's better now. Not the best, of course, but better."

"What about your other abilities?" Her dad asked from the table where he quickly piled a few of the pancakes onto his plate. "Any changes?"

She shook her head. "No. Nothing I've noticed, at least. When the helicopter dropped us back off at the mansion, I tested my speed again. And it was fine." She plopped down into a chair at the table and gave her parents a wry look. "By that point, I was wondering if Lex didn't think I was just making it up to get a ride in the helicopter."

Jonathan frowned. "I wish you had told us before you left what you planned on doing, H.C. I don't like the idea of you just running around willy nilly with Lex, showing off your abilities."

"Why not? He needs to see them."

"Because anything can happen," he snapped. "And I just don't think Lex is prepared for all eventualities at this point. Both of you are treating this entire matter like it's some sort of game."

Hudson sighed loudly but didn't argue. It was futile to disagree with her father, especially when she knew he was right on some counts. She didn't believe Lex saw it all as a game, but she also didn't think Lex was as concerned with the consequences of protecting her secret as he should be. Not for one second did Hudson believe he would ever purposely cause her harm, but she knew Lex and she knew how proud he was. The idea that he wasn't capable of protecting the people he loved was unthinkable to him.

And no matter what she said or how much she argued, she knew he would never accept her ability to take care of herself. She thought that maybe this need to play protector stemmed from his powerlessness to save his mother, and the death of his baby brother, Julian. In Lex's mind, he should be able to conquer anything, even disease.

In many ways, the same could be said of her parents. They didn't believe in Lex's capability of looking out for her because they felt that only they harbored that capacity. Only they knew what was best for her. And Lex was simply another factor in the equation that raised the danger for her.

And here was Hudson, stuck in the middle. Helpless to get any of them to understand that she was the only one capable of protecting herself, as well as them. They all seemed to forget that she was the invulnerable one here, the strong one. If she had to walk around with a target on her chest, then so be it. As long as they were safe.

Finishing her breakfast quickly, Hudson glanced up at her parents as she was going through her book bag, making certain she had all of her homework.

"Oh, is it all right if I go to Lex's tonight?" She asked. "I'll come home and get my chores done and have dinner and everything, but I was kind of hoping to stay over… "

She distinctly thought she heard her father growl at the request. Not that she could really blame him; she was his daughter, after all, and it's not like they all didn't know what she planned on doing when asking to spend the night at Lex's house. Still, after what she'd admitted to doing in Metropolis all summer, sleeping with Lex was almost wholesome.

"That's all right with me, H.C.," her mom finally replied when it was obvious Jonathan didn't plan on doing so. "As long as it's all right with your father."

And that was her way of forcing him to accept what his daughter was asking permission for.

Frowning at both of them, he gave a quick nod. "As long as you get your chores done, and are back here in time to get your chores done tomorrow morning."

"I promise!" Hudson told him with a bright smile as she slung her backpack over her shoulder. "Thanks! See you after school!"

Hudson raced to the end of the drive, checking her speed and pleased to see that everything seemed in working order. She stopped abruptly when she glimpsed one of Lex's cars coming around the corner. Grinning, she stepped out near the edge of the road and stuck her thumb out, flagging him down. The Porsche rolled to a stop beside her, and the window slid open.

"Hey, gorgeous." Lex smirked up at her. "Going my way?"

"Doubtful," she answered honestly. "Unless you are planning to go back to high school?"

Lex shook his head. "No. But I can certainly make a detour… for you."

Laughing, Hudson hurried over to the passenger side and climbed into the car. "Morning." She leaned over and kissed Lex's cheek. "How are you?"

"Good." Lex switched gears and they tore off down the road. He glanced over at her and said, "I've been doing some thinking about the way your speed went away last night."

"Oh?" She rolled her eyes. "Have any startling epiphanies?"

He flashed her a quick glare. "Have you noticed any other changes in your abilities?"

"Nope. Everything's perfect." She watched him as he nodded and grew thoughtful.

"Well?" She prodded. "Are you going to share?"

"I'm wondering if it has anything to do with the solar flare?" He glanced over at her with a raised brow.

"I didn't even think you heard me when I was talking about that."

"Well, I did. And I went back last night and made a few calculations regarding the speed with which it would take for the affects of the radiation to reach us. After all, your speed disappeared after this significant event occurred. It could hardly be coincidence."

Hudson made a face. "What does the sun have to do with me and my abilities? I'm not even from here."

Lex shrugged. "That could be the key – the fact that you aren't from here. You know, I bet I could set up some experiments that we could conduct together to find out if –"

"You are not going to stick me under a giant magnifying glass to see if you can set me on fire!"

"I daresay the experiments would be a little more sophisticated than that, Angel."

She shook her head. "My parents always said to me – they said, 'H.C., one day a strange man is going to ask you to let him conduct experiments on you and, no matter how enticing it sounds, just say no'."

"You're not remotely amusing, Hudson."

"Neither are you."

Lex pulled the car up to the front of Smallville High, put it in park, and turned to face her. "Hudson, I'm serious. If you want to figure out why your speed just gave out last night, then you have to be willing to test out some theories."

"Lex." She brought her gaze to his and smiled a little, wondering why the conversation made her feel so uncomfortable. "I'm really not that curious. I mean, nothing else has happened; everything seems fine. And the idea of being treated like a bug in a Petri dish – "

"I would never do that you."

"I know," she replied with a nod, placing her hand against his thigh to assure him. "I'm just saying, something as drastic as experiments really isn't necessary. Weirder things have happened to me, Lex. This just really doesn't register on the 'need to know' scale."

Surprisingly, Lex looked disappointed, and Hudson didn't really know how to account for that. Was he bored and looking for something to do? Or did he feel this was the only way to be a part of her life and secret? She sighed and leaned forward to kiss him.

"I need to get in there before I'm tardy again," she told him. "Love you."

She pushed open the door as, behind her, Lex made some noise of acknowledgement. She winced at the lack of reply, or maybe it was a reply of some sort in Lex's mind; she really didn't understand. Either way, it hurt inside to not hear him tell her he loved her, no matter if she didn't' deserve to hear it at this juncture or not.

Give him more time, a small voice said.

Turning, she leaned back in before closing the door. "Oh, I can come over tonight… if you still want me there?"

Lex gave her a quick smile. "Of course, I do. I shouldn't be getting back from Metropolis too late."

"Okay. See you then."

Hudson closed the door and stood back, watching as Lex drove off. She glanced up at the sun, frowning a little at its bright rays as she contemplated his hypothesis. It was insane, of course. What the hell did the sun have to do with her abilities? Lex needed to stop watching Sci-Fi.

Shaking her head, she turned and hurried to class.


"You appear to be in a particularly happy mood today," J'onn commented to his patient as she sat across from him, flashing him a big smile and chewing on her bubble gum loudly.

"I am," she told him with a nod and another grin, before blowing a large bubble and popping it.

"I take it this isn't simply because it's Friday and school is out for the weekend?"

Hudson's eyes sparkled. "No. I mean, the end of the school day is always cool, but today is very special."

"And why would that be?"

"Lex and I made up yesterday." She popped another bubble and grinned hugely. "We're back together."

"I see."

J'onn folded his hands and leaned across his desk, regarding the young woman thoughtfully. She'd become much more relaxed with him during last week's session, though not quite comfortable enough to speak of anything that seemed to be bothering her. Mostly she filled their session with the trials and tribulations of understanding poetry and why all English teachers seemed to believe such nonsense was needed to succeed in the world. But at least she was talking, beginning to trust him, and hopefully that would lead to her willingness to share thoughts on her life with him. J'onn knew discussions of who she truly was would never occur in this office, and he didn't believe such revelations were needed.

But Hudson Kent was confused about a lot of things going on in her life, and the people around her, and if he could find some way to give her guidance, to help her to understand what her abilities meant for the world around her, then he will have accomplished his mission. After all, they were, the two of them, alone among the inhabitants of this world, and one alien needed to look out for the other.

"And you believe things will be better this time around?" J'onn questioned, paying close attention to Hudson's body language and expressions.

Hudson nodded and glanced down at her hands. "Yeah. Yes, I do. Third times a charm, right?" She looked back up and smiled as she returned to smacking her gum. "And, uh, well things are different now."

"How so?"

She hesitated briefly in her reply, and J'onn felt a thread of concern whisper through him. He already knew what she would say.

"Well, we were keeping secrets from each other before. But we're not anymore."

He could probe her mind to be certain what she meant, but he knew she would likely feel it, and J'onn was ninety-nine percent positive that he knew what secrets she was referring to. He was surprised that her parents would have allowed such a thing, and angered by it. While time spent with Lex Luthor proved to him the man cared for Hudson Kent deeply, time spent with Lex Luthor also proved that he was a dangerous man who lived in a dangerous world. Both wives had caused enough problems in Hudson's life, and that was nothing compared to the damage his father could create. And, truthfully, J'onn wasn't too certain that Lex himself would not betray Hudson if given the right opportunity. Greed among the human race was a powerful motivator.

"Secrets are called such because they're meant to be kept," J'onn pointed out quietly.

Hudson frowned, pursing her lips slightly. "I suppose that's true. But shouldn't you trust the people you love not to use those secrets against you? Maybe it's not possible to share everything with the people around you but… if you want them to be a part of your life, to share your life, then maybe you should be honest about those things which affect you the most."

J'onn smiled and straightened the glasses that fit so awkwardly on the face he'd adopted. This was the thing that made Hudson – Kaela-El – so special; she wanted to trust people, wanted to give every person around her the opportunity to be trusted. If it came right down to it, he doubted that she would ever truly believe that anyone would be capable of meaning her harm, no matter how many times they may have proved otherwise in the past. It was naïve and foolish and very dangerous, but it was what made her the person she was.

"Do you believe sharing these secrets has brought you closer together?"

Another moment of hesitation. Hudson reached up to play with her gum, latching on to it with her fingertips and stretching it while holding on to the other end with her teeth. She twirled it around her finger before sucking it back into her mouth. J'onn couldn't begin to describe how revolting the entire action was.

"In a way, I guess." She kicked her feet against the floor and squirmed beneath his gaze. "Things are… different."

"Different?" He prodded.

"I don't think Lex trusts me anymore," Hudson admitted softly. "I mean, he says that he does but I just don't feel it – not like I used to. And I know that's my own fault, but it still kind of hurts. I love him, you know? And I'm sorry for everything that happened between us but I don't know how to make him understand that."

J'onn shrugged. "Sometimes these things take time."

She crossed her shin over her knee and began playing with the blue laces of her tennis shoe. "I guess. I just… I wish everything could go back to the way it used to be."

"Back to your secrets?"

"Well, no." Hudson's brow furrowed as she seemed to consider his question, and she shook her head. "Not that. I just want him to look at me the way he used to, without all of this doubt in his eyes. I want him to…"

When she didn't finish her statement, J'onn gently pushed, "You want him to what?"

"Tell me he loves me again." Her skin changed to a dark shade of red at her admission and she ducked her head. "I've told him but he hasn't… " She sighed.

"How does that make you feel?"

Hudson's head popped up and she flashed him an odd expression. "Now you really sound like a shrink."

"I'm sorry." J'onn smiled and softened his tone, "I just thought that maybe it would be a little uncomfortable to say 'I love you' to someone, and not hear it in return."

"It is." She blew a small bubble that exploded loudly when she brought it back into her mouth. "I feel kind of stupid for saying it, like maybe Lex is laughing at me. But, you know what the real problem is?"

"What is that?"

"It's that I know I shouldn't." She spread her arms wide, becoming more animated as she spoke. "I mean, Lex has been married twice and both women betrayed him. And he was really in love with Helen, you know? He trusted her, maybe more than he ever has me. And he has this bizarre relationship with his father that I'll just never understand – I doubt words of love have ever been truly spoken between them. But, here I am, demanding that he just give his love to me in return, even though he's been burned time and again for doing so. I know I'm not entitled to his love, and I know that maybe I ruined my own chances of ever having it again… but it just doesn't seem fair to me that I poor my heart out to him and he gives me… nothing."

J'onn opened his mouth to reply, but Hudson suddenly continued.

"Okay, he doesn't give me nothing – Lex gives me a lot. And he puts up with me, which really can't be the easiest thing to do. He has to be a saint for that, you know? And I can tell that he's so afraid of love now that I'm really going to have to work to get him not to be and, dammit – er, sorry – but darnit, I shouldn't feel resentment for having to do so. But I do. I've stood by him when the rest of this town would have rather told him to go to H-E double toothpicks, and I think that should count for something!"

"Uh… H-E double toothpicks?"

Hell," she mumbled, face reddening once more.

"Ah." J'onn bit back a smile. "It's all right to curse in here, Hudson. I won't tell anyone."

Hudson quickly shook her head. "If my mom ever found out I was cussing in front of a teacher or whatever, she'd kill me."

"I promise never to tell." J'onn leaned back in his chair. "You do understand that it's all right to have these feelings of resentment, don't you, Hudson? It's normal, and nothing you should worry over. You're seventeen, and you have a lot of other things to contend with in your life right now. You want this love to be simple, but isn't. Love rarely is. What you need to ask is if you believe, in your heart, that Lex will eventually return your love? If the answer is no, then maybe you need to reconsider renewing this relationship."

By the expression on her face, J'onn knew she didn't like his suggestion. If there was one thing about Hudson Kent he'd come to learn, it was that Lex Luthor hung the moon in her world. She would wait until the end of the world for his love, if that was what it took. And J'onn couldn't help but fear for her.

"Well, our hour is up, Dr. Jones," Hudson announced as she waved the wrist with her watch at him. "Time for me to head home. Chores, you know."

"I take it you're seeing Lex tonight?"

Another blush. "Am I that transparent?" She grinned as she slipped her backpack onto her shoulder and stood.

"Like cellophane."


Lex woke up screaming.

He'd been drowning in the cockpit again. The window had exploded, sending tiny shards of glass into his skin, and the cold water had engulfed him, wrapping around him like a too-thick blanket, suffocating him. He was drowning for a second time, only there would be no angel there to save him. He was alone. It was how it was meant to be.

But this time, Louis had been there, his grinning face leering at Lex from outside the cockpit. His tangled hair danced around his head in an eerie impression of Medusa, and when he swam forward, his body was more shark than human. Lex had gasped for air, moved for a chance to escape, but he was trapped; and Louis continued forward, slipping his hand around Lex's throat, tightening his grip, laughing as Lex screamed.

The light slid away, and darkness ascended.

Warm arms embraced him as he screamed. He fought from being pulled further into the dark beneath him, but the hold on him was too tight. He couldn't struggle forever; he couldn't do it alone.

"Lex…"

He took a deep breath to scream again, and realized that his lungs were filling with air this time, and not water. He gasped, choking slightly on his indrawn breath.

"… a nightmare, baby. It was just a nightmare. Shhhhh. I'm here."

Hudson was holding him. Or rather, Lex was clinging to her, fingers tangled and pulling in her hair, face pressed against her neck. He took another, steadier breath and released his hold, ashamed that she was here to see him lose control; that she was witness to how much his subconscious dominated him when he let his guard down. She kissed his temple and stroked his back, and he was reminded of the times his mother had held him in a similar manner. The thought angered him and he pushed away from her, kicking at the sheets tangled around his legs as he got to his feet.

The storms during the evening had cooled the temperature in the mansion, and his skin was slightly chilled as he walked over to the bureau to grab the small decanter of scotch. He splashed two fingers worth into the tumbler and swallowed it back before pouring another.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

He glanced into the mirror to see Hudson sitting up, leaning back against the headboard, her knees pulled to her chest. She was regarding him intently, and he hated that she likely noted the sheen of perspiration on his skin, and furrowed set of his brow.

"Not really," he replied, looking down at his glass.

"It might help if – "

"I said no, Hudson!" He snapped, turning in time to see her wince reflexively at the tone of his voice. He pushed the remorse that he felt aside, remembering the last time he'd allowed a woman to manipulate him with his guilt complex.

Never again.

"I'm sorry."

And yet, when it came to Hudson… Lex sighed and ran a hand over his scalp in frustration. "No. You have no reason to be. I just… there's nothing to talk about."

She clearly didn't believe him. Lex thought, even with all of the progress they'd made in the last two days, that she might just leave. But she surprised him with a quick nod and sympathetic expression.

"You know I'm here to listen, right?" Hudson asked softly, laying her chin against her knee. "I mean, when you're ready."

Lex doubted that he would ever be ready to talk about his time spent on the island, or his belief in the existence of Louis. But he gave a slight acknowledgment to Hudson's words before moving over to the dresser to grab a pair of pajama bottoms.

"I'm going to go downstairs for awhile," he told her, while slipping the bottoms on.

"Should I go home?" Hudson pulled the sheet back to get out of bed, but Lex quickly walked over to her and slipped the sheet back across her bare skin.

"No." He leaned over and kissed the top of her head. "Stay. I'll only be a little while." Lex forced a half-smile. "And I probably won't be able to fall back to sleep without you here."

Those were apparently words Hudson wanted to hear. She flashed him a smile and pulled him down for another kiss. "I'm not going anywhere, then."

Nodding, Lex waited until she lay back down, and then pulled the sheet over her to tuck her in.

Darius was wandering the hall when Lex reached the second floor. He stopped the security guard, asking him to send a cup of hot chocolate and some cookies up to Hudson since he knew she always woke up hungry. The man nodded and moved off toward the kitchen, and Lex continued on to the study.

A fire was still going in the hearth, warming the room considerably compared to the rest of the mansion. Outside another storm was looming; lightning flared across the sky a few miles out and the wind was picking up, slamming branches and scattered leaves into the stained glass windows. Lex tried to ignore the high-pitched whistling through the fireplace flew that sounded too much like voices calling to him. He turned on the stereo as he made his way behind his desk and sat down. He had to think about something other than the nightmare, and his time on the island. And Louis.

Numbers. Numbers worked. Grabbing a pad of paper and pen, Lex began recalling his conversation with Hudson in Utah, and everything she told him about her arrival on Earth. He factored in the information she shared regarding Krypton that she learned from Dr. Swann, and began making calculations. Before long, he opened his laptop, and the hidden file he'd started almost three years ago on Hudson.

She didn't know about it, and Lex didn't believe that she ever really needed to. There was no harm to it as long as he kept it for himself, and perhaps if this honesty between them continued, then maybe he could bring himself to share it with her. For now, the information he gathered, combined with everything she told him, could help piece together clues as to what her purpose was, if any. He wanted to help her with that, if nothing else, to find her place in this world; he knew, better than most, how horrible it felt to know that you were at odds with everything around you. Having a destiny was different from actually accepting it as your own.

"Liar."

Lex started at the sound of Hudson's voice, glancing up quickly to find her standing just inside the doorway to the study, sheet wrapped proactively around her body. He closed the program, and lowered the monitor, raising an eyebrow in question at her accusation.

"You said you'd be back to bed," she told him, moving across the room toward him. "And that was two hours ago."

He looked down at his watch and sighed. "Sorry. I hadn't realized that much time had passed."

"No biggie."

Lex pushed out from the desk, making room so that Hudson could curl into his lap. It always amazed him how deceptively light and fragile in appearance that she was. Especially now that he knew the truth of everything she was capable of doing. While she was tall, reaching only a few inches under him, her bones were incredibly petite, enough so that one couldn't help but fear them breaking in a gentle wind. When she climbed onto his lap, it felt like he were holding a child – a child capable of picking him up as if he were little more than a feather and carrying him thousands of miles in mere moments, but a child just the same. If he were forced to describe Hudson's physical appearance (aside from the fact that she had a tendency to move around like a bull in a china shop), he would call her delicate. And she was far from it, which explained why no one ever suspected her of being the one responsible for the fantastic rescues that constantly occurred in Smallville.

"Thank you for the cookies. I was hungry."

He smiled and kissed her temple, arms wrapping around her tightly. "I thought you might be."

"So, what have you been doing down here that's kept you away from bed and me?"

Chuckling at the petulant tone she used, Lex picked up the pad he'd been working the computations on and held it before her. "I was using the information you gave me about Krypton and your arrival to figure out how fast your ship must have been going."

Hudson's brow furrowed and she leaned forward in his arms, staring at the figures. "You can do that?"

"Mmm." He pointed at the notes in the margin of the paper. "The numbers would be more accurate if I knew the exact coordinates, though."

Sighing, Hudson reached out for a piece of paper and began scribbling over it. Lex watched what she was doing silently before she returned to rest against his chest and waved toward the page.

"I don't know if that's what you're looking for, but that's the information I remember written on Swann's star charts."

Eyebrow raised, Lex leaned forward and scanned the numbers. He shook his head. "You mean to tell me you have a photographic memory as well?"

"Something like that." He felt her slim shoulders shrug.

He turned to look at her with a grin. "Hudson Kent, you have absolutely no excuse to not graduate at the top of your class, do you understand me?"

"Whatever." She rolled her eyes and nodded toward the desk. "Do they help or not?"

Picking up the nearby pencil, Lex began calculating the numbers and comparing them to those he'd already worked through. "Hudson, do you realize that your race achieved travel at lightspeed equivalent of two point five warp speed?"

Turning to look at him, Hudson rolled her eyes. "Lex, your inner Star Trek nerd is shining through."

"I'm serious." He tossed the pad back to the desk and returned to holding her as she wriggled around in his lap enough to face him. "If Krypton was, in fact, located 50 light years from here, and you traveled for approximately two and half years, then your ship would have been capable of going twenty-one times the speed of light."

"That's… really fast."

"Faster than you."

Hudson poked him in the stomach. "If you're so smart, then maybe you can answer another question for me that I've had ever since my dad told me the truth."

Lex shrugged. "I'll try."

"Okay, so according to what Dr. Swann told me, Krypton is no longer there, and it's very probable that the meteors all over town are pieces of the planet. Which means," she took a breath, "it blew up. But how did those meteor rocks follow me - at twenty-one times the speed of light, according to your calculations – through space?"

"Well, I suppose that would depend on how soon your ship launched from the planet's destruction." At Hudson's frown, Lex explained, "If the planet was destroyed shortly after your ship was launched, then it's possible that the meteors were caught within the engine's wake just as it jumped into lightspeed."

"How?"

"If you'll excuse my inner Star Trek nerd," Lex replied with a slight grin. "The nacelles of the Enterprise create a 'warp' in space, like a bubble, and if anything were within the proximity of them when they were fired up – such as meteors - it would be caught within that bubble and carried with it. The same principal could have applied to your ship, causing the rock from the planet's explosion to be caught within the engines backwash. If that is, in fact, what occurred to your homeworld."

Hudson grew silent, thoughtful as her fingers picked at the edges of the sheet. "I can't help but wonder why it was just me. Why didn't my parents come, too?" She glanced up at Lex, as if hoping for another explanation.

"I don't know, Angel." He brushed her bangs from her brow and kissed her. "But they must have had a very good reason. I can't imagine anyone choosing to send you away."

Flashing him a quick smile, Hudson burrowed her face into the crook of his neck. Her voice was muffled when she told him, "Let's go back to bed. I have to get up soon and go feed cows."

Lex stood, lifting Hudson into his arms as she squealed in delight. "Do you think there were cows on Krypton?"

She rolled her eyes as he carried her from the study. "Of course there were cows on Krypton, Lex! Can you imagine a world without cows?"


Her parents were quiet during breakfast, which Hudson didn't really mind since she wasn't in the mood to answer questions regarding her night with Lex. She had a wonderful time with him, and hadn't realized how much she'd missed just being able to sleep beside him in his enormous and comfy bed until she had the chance to do so again. They played chess in front of the fire, and he solidly kicked her ass as always, and then they played pool until Lex's hands began roaming. At that point, all other activities became forgotten in place of sex. Clothes went flying as Hudson sped them up to his room.

But his nightmare had frightened her. She'd never seen Lex so scared as he was before she could fully wake him, and his frustration and anger afterwards were just as difficult to bear. She thought this was the kind of thing he should have been discussing with the therapist he was seeing, but now Hudson realized that it was likely exactly the subject he wouldn't want to share with a stranger. Lex had always been about control – keeping control of himself, especially in front of others; having control of every situation, including those things which were out of his sphere. She knew he was angry at himself for letting her see his reaction to his nightmare, let alone confessing to someone else what it was that plagued his subconscious. Worst of all, she didn't know how to help him, especially when she knew he didn't want her help.

She'd asked him about his sessions with Claire Foster, but he'd told her they were over and done with. Five sessions, it was all he had been forced to sit through. Obviously, he'd never shared his experiences on the island with her, either, and Hudson wondered if keeping all of that bottled up inside of him wasn't the problem. Not that she thought his sharing such personal information with a total stranger would be easy for him, but her own sessions with Dr. Jones were quickly becoming a lifeline for her. She loved being able to share things that the people close to her simply wouldn't understand, or would argue with. It was nice to, for once, just be a normal teenager with normal problems.

But with Lex, things were different, and they always would be. Lex was her rock. It shouldn't be that way, but there it was. Especially now, that he knew her secret, that she could rely on him to be there to help her when she needed him. His was the steady hand when she thought she was falling apart. If she lost that, where would leave them?

"Deliveries need to be made this morning," her dad told her, interrupting her train of thought. "I need you to help me move the herd to the south pasture this afternoon."

Hudson nodded quietly in reply.

Her mom, apparently noting her unusual reticence, asked, "Honey, are you all right?"

"Yeah. Just thinking." Hudson gave her a small smile.

"Anything you'd like to talk about?"

Hudson thought about it and realized her fears and disillusions regarding Lex were probably better left unspoken with her parents. Maybe noticing these things was just a part of growing up and realizing that not everyone could be who you wanted them to be. Just like daddy's weren't always right.

She shook her head. "No. I mean, it's just little stuff. Teenage stuff."

Martha smiled. "You realize, of course, that your father and I were teenagers once, too."

"Really?" Hudson teased. "Did you have the wheel back, then? Or did that come later?"

"Smart Alec," her mother smiled, slapping her thigh lightly.

"I'd better head out for chores," she told them, getting to her feet and grabbing her plate to carry to the dishwasher. "Anything you guys need me to pick up in town?"

"Oh!" Her mom jumped up and hurried over to her purse, pulling out her wallet to dig for some money. "Could you pick me up a few packets of yeast? Also, a ten-pound bag of flour and five-pounds of sugar."

"Mmm. Making something yummy?"

"Not for you. The PTA is having a bake sale next week to raise money for the Christmas Carnival."

Hudson sighed and rolled her eyes as she took the money and slipped it into her pocket.

"We could use more staples for the fence," Jonathan told her. "You know the ones? Fifty pounds, one and a half inch?"

"Yeah." She nodded as her mom handed her more money for the hardware store. "Anything else?"

Her parents shook their heads and returned to their breakfast. Grabbing her jacket, Hudson headed out to the truck, checking on the boxes of fruits and vegetables she had to deliver before climbing into the cab. There didn't appear to be a delivery for the mansion today, which depressed her just a bit, even if she didn't need an excuse to drop by and see Lex.

It was going to be hard to slip back into the habit of simply appearing on Lex's doorstep whenever she felt like it. Lurking deep in the back of her mind was Hudson's fear that she'd one day show up – and there'd be another Helen or Desiree answering the door, looking at her curiously as if she didn't belong. And there was the new fear of Lionel, of what it was he did or didn't know about her, and if he truly were watching Lex so closely, then how dangerous did that make it for her? Hudson certainly didn't regret telling Lex the truth, and she would never wish to go back and change it. But that didn't mean her life wasn't suddenly a hell of a lot more complicated. She was slowly beginning to understand why her parents had been so against her sharing her secret with Lex.

"Speak of the devil," Hudson mumbled to herself as she came around the corner on route W to find Lex standing along the side of the road, glaring at his Aston Martin as he dialed his phone. He glanced up at the sound of the truck, and flipped his phone closed, slipping it into his pocket. Hudson pulled the truck up behind the sports car and hopped out with a smile.

"Hey. What's up? Checking out the scenery?"

Lex gave her an impatient glare. "A goddamned deer ran out into the road. I swerved to avoid hitting it, and up here. Now my fucking car is stuck in the mud."

Hudson couldn't contain her smile. "You didn't want to hit the deer – Lex, that's so sweet!"

He rolled his eyes. "Have you ever seen what a deer can do to a two-hundred and fifty thousand dollar sports car?"

"Aww. You're such a sap, Lex. Who knew?"

"Are you going to help me or are you just going to stand there and make jokes, waiting to be discovered by David Letterman?"

Hudson raised her eyebrows as she moved around to the back of the car. "Somebody's testy this morning. You weren't like this when I left."

"I'd just had sex when you left, Hudson," he reminded her. "And my car wasn't stuck in the road."

"Well, maybe if you drove slower…"

"Can you save the lectures for later? I have a meeting to get to in Metropolis."

"With who?" Hudson turned to stare at him, disappointed.

He sighed, running a hand over his scalp. "That bitch, Claire Foster. She had the gall not to pass my psychological evaluation. So I figure telling her to go to hell is much more effective than over the phone."

"Do you really think telling her to 'go to hell' is going to convince her to sign the form?"

"No. But it'll make me feel better."

Hudson allowed a small smile. "Lex, maybe you should just talk to her. If you can't talk to me about your experience on the island – "

"How am I supposed to talk about it to a complete stranger?" He demanded. "It's not easy for me, Hudson. Things happened out there. I lost control…"

Moving over to him, Hudson wrapped her arms around his waist and caught his gaze. "Lex, nothing you did could compare to the rampage I went on. I have difficulty talking about it, too – and most of the time I try to pretend it never happened. But talking to you did make things better, if only so I could get it out in the open and let it go. I think you need to do the same. If you don't want me to know about your loss of control, then maybe you should tell a stranger? Someone who doesn't really care in a personal manner."

Lex was silent for a long moment before he finally begrudgingly asked, "When did you get so wise?"

"I learned everything I know from my boyfriend," she replied cheekily.

He rolled his eyes and gestured toward the car. "Well? Are you going to get that thing out today?"

"You're starting to sound like my father," Hudson muttered as she pulled away from Lex to move back behind the car and slip her hands beneath the fender. "Pick up the tractor, Hudson. Lift the truck over you head, Hudson. Hudson, it'd be easier to milk the cows if you just picked them up…"

She thought she heard Lex chuckle behind her but she could have been imagining it.

Careful not to bend or damage the vehicle, Hudson wrapped her fingers beneath the car and lifted – only it didn't go anywhere. Frowning, she applied more pressure, lifting upwards once more. But still, nothing happened.

"Damn." She looked over her shoulder at Lex. "I think my strength is gone now."

"Are you certain?" Lex's brow furrowed. "Your speed came back easily enough. Try again."

Sighing, Hudson gave a quick shrug and reached back under the car to give it another try. Bracing her legs beneath her, she threw all of her weight into it this time, and Lex's Aston Martin lifted free of the mud.

And kept going.

Hudson gaped as the sports car went sailing hundreds of feet into the air down the road, and over the tree tops toward the east side of town. Panic sweeping over her, she turned quickly to find Lex watching his car as it disappeared from view, a curious and strangely calm expression schooled across his features. He met her gaze, and his eyebrows raised slightly in question. Mentally cursing the shock that had immobilized her, Hudson sped off down the road in pursuit of the getaway sports car, hoping to catch it before it landed.

Unfortunately, she was seconds short, breaking out of her run just as the car impacted with the road ahead of her. She stared in stunned silence as a hubcap rolled off toward the ditch beside the road, glass splintered across the lanes and the hood ornament bounced to a rest in front of her feet. The Aston Martin resembled more of a squashed bug in the road than it did a car at the moment, and Hudson found herself mentally calculating exactly how many years it would take her to pay Lex back at the current rate of her allowance.

It came out to be a very, very long time.


"I really am sorry, Lex."

"Hudson, I told you not to worry about it. I have a garage full of cars."

That really didn't make her feel any better about the incident.

Lex had appeared at the scene of the mangled car, driving the Kent pickup truck. It would have normally been an amusing moment for Hudson, but she'd been too busy pacing around the scattered parts of the Aston Martin, wondering how in the hell she was supposed to explain this one. Lex appeared nonplussed throughout the ordeal, making a call to the local salvage yard to pick up what was left of the wreck and answering the complicated questions of the towers. When Sheriff Adams happened by to write a report, Hudson had become so shaken that Lex finally sent her to the cab of the truck to wait for him as he smoothed everything over. Adams hadn't seemed too happy, or accepting of whatever story it was Lex fed her, but she'd eventually waved him away, and turned to climb back into her car.

"What did you tell Adams?" Hudson asked, glancing over at Lex who had insisted on driving back to the farm.

"That we were taking my car back to your farm so your dad could work on it… and it fell off of the back of the truck."

Hudson grimaced. "I could see why she wouldn't accept an explanation like that."

Lex shrugged. "She had no choice. There was really no other logical explanation she could come up with for it."

She nodded and let out a short breath as Lex reached over to pat her leg. "Stupid powers. I can't believe that happened."

"One of these days we'll look back on this and laugh."

"I suppose." Hudson smirked a little. "It was kind of funny, watching your car just soar through the air like that."

"I said one of these days, Hudson," Lex reminded her with half-glare. "Today is not that day."

"Oh. Sorry."

Hudson didn't know if he was teasing or not, but she felt bad enough as it was, and didn't want to push her luck. She hunkered down on the seat and wondered what her parents were going to say about all of this. Obviously they would tell her to lay off the use of her abilities until they were certain that whatever was going on was over with. But what if it wasn't just some passing problem? What if Jor-El was doing this to her out of some form of revenge for her coming home and not accepting her destiny – whatever the hell that was. What if this was the way her abilities were going to behave for the rest of her life – sometimes there, sometimes not?

"You've got that look again."

She glanced over at Lex. "What look?"

"The one that says the weight of the world is on your shoulders."

"Maybe it's just the trauma of seeing you driving my dad's pickup."

Lex flashed her a quick smirk. "You don't think I fit in as a farmer?"

"About as well as I fit in as a cook."

He visibly flinched at the thought, receiving a smack from her for his trouble.

Chuckling, he reached out to take her hand in his. "You're not facing this alone, you know. You can talk about what's worrying you."

"I know." Hudson sighed and scooted closer to him, leaning her head against his shoulder. "It's just… I can't help but wonder if this is the way I'm going to be from now on or maybe it's leading up to something worse."

"I still say it's just the effects from the solar flares, and that once the radiation passes out of our atmosphere, you'll be fine," Lex explained, glancing down at her for a moment. "We could answer this question this afternoon if you really wanted to. The labs are empty --"

"Let me think about it. Okay?"

Lex smiled and kissed the top of her head as he pulled up in front of the Kent farmhouse. "Okay, Angel."

Her mom and dad were waiting inside the yard where they were working on the begonias together. They both stood, frowning as she pushed the gate open and moved up the walk with Lex close on her heels. Her dad's gaze flickered to the back of the pickup truck where all of the boxes still sat, waiting to be delivered.

"H.C., what's going on?" He asked.

"We had a bit of an incident," Lex supplied for her while Hudson sighed beside him. She shook her head and wandered toward the house as he continued, "Another mishap with her abilities."

"No one was hurt, were they?" Martha asked, quickly moving to catch up to Hudson as she neared the kitchen door.

"My pride and Lex's car," Hudson told her as she stepped inside and waited for her parents and Lex to join her.

"I don't understand."

Hudson met her mom's gaze and felt her cheeks redden. "I tried to pull Lex's car out of the mud, and I couldn't. So then I tried again, and my abilities came back… and Lex's car ended up out on Hwy 77, in thousands of itty bitty pieces."

"Oh, honey." Her mom stepped forward and hugged her. "I'm sure Lex doesn't blame you."

"I tried to tell her that," Lex remarked. "But she won't listen to me."

"Did anyone see it happen?"

Lex glanced at Jonathan and shook his head. "No. But the Sheriff came by. She really couldn't do anything other than accept that explanation I gave her."

"Then there's nothing to worry about, H.C.," her dad told her. "I'm sure Lex can afford to buy a new car."

"That's not the point." Hudson wandered into the family room miserably. "What if it hadn't been his car? What if it had been him? Or one of you? What if someone had been in the car? I hate this! I hate not knowing anything about myself."

She kicked at the edge of the couch before sitting down and staring at her hands. There were far too many 'what if' scenarios that revolved around what she was and what she could do. And while her biological father had made himself known to her, ready to demand she do this or do that on a whim, he wasn't very good at providing answers to the questions that plagued her. Actually, he wasn't very good at providing answers, period. The person with the most answers was Dr. Swann, and something about that made her nervous. Maybe she just didn't like the fact that someone dedicated to the study of extra-terrestrial beings held her life, and all of the answers to it, in the palm of his hand.

Her mom sat down beside her, slipping her arm around her shoulders. "You can't dwell on what might have happened, H.C., if it didn't. Now that we know all of your abilities are being affected, you'll just have to be careful about using them until we can figure this out."

"And what if we can't figure it out?"

"We will, Hudson," Lex told her from across the room. "I promise."

"Until then," her dad began, sitting down on the other side of her. "I agree with your mother. Refrain from using any of your abilities, just to be on the safe side."

Hudson nodded, and tried to feel a little less helpless. She knew she should probably take Lex up on his offer to run the experiments but something about just the thought made her cringe. She didn't want to be involved in experiments; she didn't like the idea that the only way she'd ever truly learn about who she was would be in a lab. What was so wrong with her just being normal, like everyone else?

Her mom stood and walked into the kitchen, telling everyone she would start lunch as Hudson reached up to rub at her eyes, which were beginning to ache and itch. It wasn't until she felt the burning behind her eyelids that she realized what was about to happen.

"Oh god, no!" She yelled as she jumped up, moving to get out of the room but stumbling against the coffee table as she fought to keep her eyes closed.

"H.C.?" Her dad called out, grabbing her arm but she shook his hand away.

"Get back!" She shouted. And then the pain became too intense and her eyes shot open in time to see Lex directly in her line of vision. "Lex! Get down!"

He ducked just as the curtains behind him erupted into flames. Hudson fought to close her eyes again as her dad shouted for her mom to get the fire extinguisher. She tried to move, to get out of the house, but everyone was in her way and the burning was too intense, and her eyes shot open again, the intense heat erupting across the wall in front of her.

"Lex! Take this!" She heard her dad call out, and then he appeared in front of her, batting at the fire with a blanket.

Hudson quickly spun around, searching for a section of the room not occupied but the burning faded and she realized it was over. Over, and yet the damage was already done. The beautiful lace curtains that were at least eighty years old were destroyed, tattered remains now covered in foam where they dangled from the curtain rod. And the wall over the sofa, scorched in an odd S-shape, the center painting of the farm unsalvageable.

"Angel, are you all right?"

Lex was kneeling down beside her, apparently unafraid that she would suddenly immolate him, searing his skin to little more than ashes. And she'd come so close to doing so, so very close to setting him on fire in a manner much worse than what she'd witnessed Desiree doing to him. Her eyes were dry, but Hudson burst into tears anyway and Lex, unafraid, pulled her into his arms and held her tight.

"Shhh. It's all right. Everyone's all right, Hudson."

"I could have killed you!" She cried against his shoulder.

"But you didn't."

"We're safe," she heard her mother add beside her. "And very little damage was done. We can fix the wall in no time. And I've been wanting new curtains."

Their assurances didn't help. They were being nice because they had to, because there was no other girl in the entire world who walked around setting fire to her own house simply by opening her eyes. Hudson wondered how they couldn't be afraid of her, how they didn't run screaming from the house, never coming near her again. She wondered why her parents hadn't locked her away in some lab a long time ago.

Lifting her head, Hudson met Lex's gaze with trepidation. "I… I think we should try to figure out what's wrong, Lex. I think we need to know if it's going to stop."

Lex nodded silently in reply.


"There's no one here, I promise." Lex held out his hand to Hudson, who continued to hover just outside the door to the lab.

"What if someone decides to wander in?"

He smiled at that. "Would you go into work on your day off? Seriously, Hudson, I promise everything is going to be okay. Trust me."

Realizing she had no other choice, Hudson slipped her hand into his outstretched one and allowed Lex to tug her into the lab. He switched on the lights as they moved inside, and a bluish tint was cast across the room. Tugging her hand from his, Hudson wrapped her arms around herself protectively, gaze sweeping over the sterile environment that was too much like a hospital, and too little like anything that she was used to. Everything around her was brushed aluminum and shiny, and impossibly more clean than her mother's kitchen. The antiseptic smell overpowered her nostrils until she thought she might gag from the scent.

"How long is this going to take?" She asked quietly, seeking out Lex where he stood in the corner, flipping on a bunch of switches and pushing buttons.

"A few hours, at most," he told her as a handful of monitors flickered to life in front of him. He glanced over his shoulder at her, brow furrowing as his gaze swept from head to foot. "Don't be nervous, Hudson. Nothing is going to hurt you. I promise."

"I know. It just… it smells funny in here."

Lex smiled and turned back to what he was doing. "I guess I'm used to it. All through high school and college, I spent the majority of my time in the labs." He gave a short laugh. "Well, at least when I bothered to show up for school… There. I think we're ready to begin the initial tests."

Walking over to her, Lex took Hudson's hand and led her to the center of the room next to an enormous table. "Wait here."

She watched as he moved away and began collecting objects from around the room: a large piece of scrap metal, a section of rebar, a stop watch. She shifted uneasily from one foot to the other, waiting for him to rejoin her. He stopped by once, dropping the items on the table in front of her, and then moved away again to grab a portable cardio/respiratory and oxygen saturation monitor that was standing in the back of the room. Pulling it over, he began separating the leads and reached out to unbutton her shirt.

"What are you doing?" Hudson asked, grabbing his hands to stop him.

"I'm going to monitor how your system reacts to the solar flares that the lab creates – "

"What?" She clutched at the top of her shirt for a moment. "How are you going to recreate the flares?" She asked to distract him, not wanting to admit that she was terrified of being hooked up to anything.

Lex nodded toward the far wall. "With the use of the particle accelerator, I can reproduce the effect of lightning, which carries the same strength of gamma rays that X-class solar flares create. My theory is that it's possible your body stores the sun's energy like a battery, gathering up the gamma rays transmitted through the atmosphere and then releasing them when you use your abilities. When those gamma rays fluctuate, so does the strength of your abilities."

Hudson shook her head. "I don't understand. How can I be so connected to the sun when I'm not from here?"

"That's the whole point." Lex gently tugged her hands away from her shirt and continued undoing the buttons until he could part the material and begin attaching the three leads. "From the coordinates you gave me, I discovered that the system Krypton was located in is home to a Red Giant. Therefore, your physiology would have evolved in accommodation to the gamma radiation emitted by the red star. Not yellow. It's highly probable that this is the reason behind your superhuman abilities."

"Because of the sun?"

"Mmm."

"And you're going to somehow recreate the effects of the sun, except at a higher level?"

"Yes."

Hudson pondered this a moment, trying to ignore the strange sensation of the stickers that were being attached to her skin over both breasts, and one below her left breast against her ribs. She stared across the room at the particle accelerator, wondering why a fertilizer plant would have need of such a thing.

"Lex? Why do you have a particle accelerator?"

"Experimentation purposes." He glanced up at her before reaching out for a plastic device that resembled a clothes pin and was hooked to yet another wire. Picking up her hand, he slipped it over the tip of her index finger. "This is a sat probe. It's going to monitor your oxygen levels."

She was careful not to bend her finger, knowing she would break the device. "What experiments?"

Chuckling, Lex kissed the tip of her nose. "Planning on going into the fertilizer business, are you?" Completely ignoring her question, he handed her the rebar. "Here. I want you to test your abilities with these objects and see if everything is working as it should."

"You make me sound like a computer or machine or something." She frowned.

"Hardly. You're body is really no different from a human's, Hudson. You're simply affected by different things. When a human gets sick, their body begins to shut down. Things don't work properly. Simply look at this as a cold that you have to get over."

She didn't like how easily Lex referred to her as non-human, though she figured it was better than how her parents liked to pretend she wasn't the least bit different than anyone else. Sometimes she found herself wondering if her dad didn't think that if he believed in it hard enough, one day she would wake up to just be a normal little girl, like any other. That was a secret thought she never shared with anyone, because it was entirely too painful to speak aloud.

Picking up the rebar, Hudson quickly bent it in half, waved it at Lex and placed it back on the table. She watched as he frowned at the readings on the monitor.

"Can you burn a hole through that piece of metal?" He asked.

"I feel like a circus freak," she muttered before focusing her gaze on the metal scrap and watching as a small hole appeared - followed by another below it, through the table beneath. She stopped quickly and flashed a quick wince in Lex's direction. "Sorry about that."

"Don't worry." He rubbed at his chin for a moment as he continued to examine the readings, then glanced back over at her. "Hudson, when you do these things – even when you lift the tractor – do you ever feel a change in your heart rhythm or your breathing?"

She thought about it and shrugged. "Not that I can think of."

"Amazing." He gestured toward the monitor. "Do you think you could pick that up and run with it without jostling it too much?"

"Yeah. Sure."

Hudson gripped the pole in her hands, lifting it slightly off the ground and clutching it closely to her before glancing over at Lex.

"Five laps around the lab."

Rolling her eyes, she sped away, pleased to see that every one of her abilities seemed to be performing exactly as they should. She circled the room five times as requested and stopped beside the table once more, gently setting the monitor back to its stand. Lex blinked at her, and glanced down at the stopwatch she didn't realize he'd picked up.

"Well, there went a millisecond," he commented with a slight smirk, before turning his attention to the monitors. Again, he shook his head. "Not a single fluctuation. You exert absolutely no energy in the use of your abilities, or it's so miniscule that I would have to monitor you over an extended period of time to get any reading on it."

"I'd prefer we get through this junk as quickly as possible," she replied, picking at the sticker above her left breast. It didn't cause her any discomfort, but she didn't like it being there. She tugged on a bra strap impatiently while she waited for Lex to tell her what to do next.

Nodding once, Lex moved away from her to the computer near the far wall, and the particle accelerator. She knew he had purposely ignored her questions regarding the experiments, and figured it was probably because, like his father, he still conducted tests with the meteor rocks. It wasn't that she didn't believe there might be a practical application for the Kryptonite in some form – there was a use for everything when it came right down to it. Her fears stemmed from the instability of the meteors; too many people had been hurt because of them as it was, and use in the laboratories could only lead to more disaster. Hudson knew that Lex would never release a product that was potentially harmful to the general public. But when it came to the testing environment, there was no way to determine what could happen.

Too, these were meteor rocks. And their effects on her were enough to give her pause no matter who was using them, or for what reason.

A loud hum began vibrating through the lab, bringing Hudson's attention back to Lex, who was walking back over to her. "Could you grab the metal scraps?" He asked as he reached her side.

She did as requested as he looped his fingers around the monitor stand and waved at her to walk with him. Brow furrowing, Hudson followed him through the lab toward a large, glass enclosed room that was empty except for a flat metal bed or table in the center. There was an oval-shaped dome attached to it that served as the entrance.

"This is a containment chamber," Lex explained, pushing in a code on the door to open it. He stepped inside the tiny space, waiting for Hudson to join him before the door slid shut behind them. He keyed in another code on the panel beside them, and the door to the containment room opened.

"When the particle accelerator recreates the proper explosion needed to reach the solar flares effects, the gamma rays will be channeled into this room," he continued, stepping inside. "When I give you the signal, you go ahead and perform each task again to see if they've been affected. And don't worry about your heat vision if it gets out of control – you won't damage anything in here that isn't meant to be damaged."

He turned to go.

"Wait." Hudson reached out to grab his sleeve. "You're locking me in here with this stuff while you're out there? And you expect me to be okay with this?"

"There's no reason to be afraid, Hudson. None of this is going to hurt you," he assured her gently, leaning forward to give her a quick kiss. "If it starts to bother you, just tell me you want to stop and we will. Okay?"

She worried her lower lip and glanced around, still uncertain.

Obviously noticing her discomfort, Lex took her hand and asked, "What can I say to make this easier for you?"

"I don't know." She glanced back toward the accelerator. "Maybe… maybe if I understood a little better how you're going to do what you said."

"Okay."

Lex pulled her over to the table where he leaned against the edge and took her into his arms, holding her close as he began his explanation.

"Normally, gamma rays are produced by thermo-nuclear explosions in the sun. A few years ago, through satellite research, they began detecting these gamma rays, called terrestrial gamma rays or TGF's, on earth."

"How?"

"It's called 'Runaway breakdown'. Basically, collisions between extraterrestrial cosmic rays and the atmosphere generate a few very high energy electrons. A sufficiently strong electric field can further accelerate these electrons. Those cause additional collisions, producing more high energy electrons until the whole process avalanches.

"The gamma rays appear when this kind of electron avalanche appears in the electrical field immediately following a strong lightning discharge. Hypothetically, such a discharge could create a high energy electron beam at altitudes between 30 and 50 kilometers. The beam would them produce gamma rays as it interacts with the atmosphere."

"So, with your accelerator you're going to create these huge electron beam?" She asked incredulously.

Lex shook his head. "No. Interestingly enough, even though it is believed that the magnitude of the gamma rays produced should have such an effect, they don't. I can produce the same high energy gamma rays with electronic charges fifty to five hundred times smaller than what should be required."

Sighing, Hudson kicked at the floor before tucking her head under his chin. "As long as this doesn't cause the building to explode or anything."

"Not to worry." He kissed the top of her head and set her away from him, catching her gaze. "We've conducted the same manner of tests dozens of times."

Hudson wanted to ask for what purpose, but knew he wouldn't answer. Instead, as he walked toward the door, she asked, "Lex, why didn't you become a scientist?"

He grinned over his shoulder at her. "I love science, Hudson, don't get me wrong. But you have to know your own strengths. Mine lay in a boardroom, not a lab."

She didn't agree. She figured that was probably his father talking, whether Lex realized it or not.

Letting out a nervous breath, she stared at the door as it slipped shut behind Lex, then followed his figure closely with her eyes as he moved back around to the controls to the particle accelerator. She glanced down at the monitor she was attached to, but didn't understand many of the readings; as much time as she'd spent in the hospital next to the various bedsides of those she loved, she'd never really bothered paying attention to the numbers. From what she could tell, her own heart moved at a rhythm of about forty-five beats per minute. It seemed low to her, but she couldn't remember what the usual number was supposed to be for humans. Lex had been correct, though; her own readings hadn't changed even by a fraction since he hooked her up to the monitor.

"Hudson?" She heard his voice echo through a speaker above. "You ready?"

Well, the logical answer to that, of course, was HELL NO! But she sighed and nodded her head.

Waiting patiently, she listened to the hum around the lab as it steadily increased. Surprisingly, it wasn't as loud as she expected a particle accelerator to be. Come to think of it, she'd never really thought about what an accelerator sounded like. Glancing up at the vents that filtered into the containment room, she waited to feel something that would alert her to the fact that her environment had changed, but nothing really felt all that different.

"Okay, Angel. Try bending the rebar."

She picked up the piece she'd bent and it easily straightened beneath her pull. She held it up for Lex's perusal and shrugged.

"I'm going to try boosting the power," he told her. "The effect created only produced gamma rays equal to that of an M-class flare. Hang on."

Hudson turned back to the monitor beside her and began playing with some of the dials. As before, the readings hadn't fluctuated in the least. All of the tests were beginning to seem a little pointless, and her impatience was growing. If they didn't figure out what the changes in her abilities were caused by, she could end up battling these alterations the rest of her life.

"Hudson, try your heat vision this time."

Turning back to the table, Hudson focused her gaze on the scrap metal. She waited but nothing happened. Frowning, she glanced down at the monitor she was attached to, but nothing had changed on it, either.

"Not working?" Lex asked.

She shook her head.

"I'm going to adjust the settings again. If you feel it come on the way it did back at the house, just try not to hit the monitor."

Bored, Hudson leaned on the table, drumming her fingers against the metal surface as the humming sound oscillated around her. She rested her chin in the palm of her hand and began wondering what she and Lex were going to do when they were done. She was kind of in the mood to go swimming, but Lex never joined her. He usually just sat at the poolside, laptop on the table, working and occasionally nodding in response to her chatter. So it was rarely ever fun, unless she threw him in, which she did once. And only once.

When her vision suddenly blurred, Hudson thought it was her heat vision triggering on, but her eyesight continued to grow more unfocused until the containment room around her disappeared…

She was laying on a table, the surface hard and cold beneath her. She couldn't move, strapped down as she was by Kryptonite cuffs on her wrists and ankles. The pain continued to rip through her body; it felt as if her blood were boiling and her bones were turning to ash.

"One, two, I'm gonna cut you! Three, four, I'll be covered in gore! Five, six, gonna get my kicks! Seven, eight, … oh, what rhymes with eight?... Oh! Eviscerate!"

Maniacal laughter followed as a shadowed figure hovered beside her. She tried to make out a face, but the bright fluorescent lights above prevented it. "Please, you don't have to do this!" She heard herself beg.

"Oh, I know!" The man's voice replied sympathetically. "But, you see, Precious, I want to do this!"

A glowing green, Kryptonite carved scalpel appeared in her field of vision. She attempted to struggle but it was useless. She was too weak to get away.

"Nice and pretty those organs of yours are going to look under glass, Precious. Just wait and see! I'll leave your eyes for last, just so you can… "

She felt the first slice of the scalpel through her stomach and screamed…

"Ahhhh!"

Hudson pushed away from the table, tearing the leads from her chest and ripping the sat monitor from her finger. She threw herself against the door, trying to open it but her strength was gone. Instead, she pounded against the metal, screaming for Lex to let her out as the visions of her dissection continued to permeate her mind.

"Hudson -- !"

The door slid open and Lex was holding her, hands petting her hair gently as she trembled in his arms. "Hudson? What is it? What happened?"

She shook her head and pushed past him, pulling out of his arms and quickly fastening the buttons on her shirt. "I have to get out of here!" She told him, voice rising. "I don't want to do this anymore!"

"Okay. Okay." Lex was speaking softly to her, calmly, as he followed. "We don't have to. I told you we could stop whenever you wanted." He paused, approaching her and slowly reaching out to touch her arm. "Hudson, what happened? What scared you?"

"I… I had a vision or dream or something," she replied quickly, stumbling over her words. "There was this man… he… he was laughing and… he had a scalpel made of Kryptonite. He was cutting me up!"

"Oh, Jesus," Lex muttered, pulling her back into his arms. "Easy, baby. I'm never going to let anything like that happen to you. You hear me?" He cupped her face and pulled back to meet her eyes. "Never. No one is ever going to touch you. I promise. I'll keep you safe."

Hudson closed her eyes. She saw it again, and shuddered. "It was so real," she whispered. "I could feel the Kryptonite cuffs holding me down. The blade cutting into my skin… "

"I'm sorry, Angel. I shouldn't have put you through this." He kissed her lips and held her close and tight, again.

She agreed, but refrained from saying so. After all, she was the one who gave in, the one who just had to know what was going on. Taking a deep breath, she told him, "I want to go home."

"Okay." He kissed her temple and stepped back. "You go on ahead of me so I can get everything cleaned up in here. I don't want to leave any trace behind that we were here."

Shuddering once more, Hudson wiped at her tears as she turned and headed for the door. Fingers hovering over the handle, she glanced back at Lex and attempted a smile that she knew didn't come out right. "Thank you for trying to help."

"Anything for you, Angel."


Lex moved the flashlight over the wall in front of him, brow furrowing as he stared intently at the painting of the two-headed monster. So many of the paintings within the cave walls were vague; like most prophecies, they could be applied to almost anything and anyone if you skewed the facts enough. Or tried hard enough to disbelieve what they offered you, which Lex wondered if Hudson was doing.

He swept the flashlight further to the side, seeing the pictograms that showed one man lifting ten into the air, another showing bolts of fire shooting out of a crudely drawn figure's eyes, a third showing the same crude figure running faster than the wavy lines depicting the wind. Strength, laser vision, speed. He wondered if he could, given enough time, find every bit of truth about Hudson somewhere in the cave drawings; these three were entirely accurate, despite Hudson's wishes for them not to be, and he couldn't help but think her entire story might be told in the rough drawings that had been here for hundreds of years.

His cell phone was in his hand, had been for the last few minutes, and he finally moved to shine the flashlight onto the keypad so he could thumb through the speed dial and call Hudson.

He was not surprised that Jonathan Kent answered the phone. "Hello?"

Lex sighed inwardly. "Mr. Kent? It's Lex Luthor calling." Why he felt the need to constantly identify himself to this man, he didn't know, and promised himself to stop in the near future. "I was hoping to speak to Hudson."

A pause on the other end of the phone, as though Jonathan was considering not answering. Lex nearly hung up before Jonathan's voice came back on the other end. "Just a minute, Lex. She's out in the barn."

"Thank you." He could barely hear the muffled shout of Hudson's name, but seconds later she was at the phone.

"Hello?"

"Hello, Angel," Lex said softly. "How are you feeling?"

"Better," Hudson answered, although her voice was still quiet, down from her usual ebullience. He heard her breath blow across the receiver.

He could barely imagine how much what she'd seen had terrified her, but the reluctant part of him was easily overpowered by the desire to know, to protect. "I'm sorry," he said again, and as he spoke, he brought his flashlight back up to the two-headed monster.

"You didn't have to apologize again," Hudson reassured him. "Are you all right? I didn't freak you out, did I?"

"I'm only worried about you, that's all," Lex replied, the light beam steady on the pictograph. He frowned as the cell phone cut out on him, and then gave a burst of static from being underground.

"Where are you, Lex? You sound like you're in a tunnel," she said, and Lex could hear the frown in her voice.

"Close... I'm in the caves. I was hoping you could come by." He paused. "Now."

Hudson was very, very quiet on the other end of the phone for a long moment, and Lex thought he'd lost the call entirely until she spoke again. "Okay, Lex. I'll be there in a minute." She didn't even pause to say goodbye, just hung up.

And it was a literal minute, because Lex was still folding the small flip-phone closed and tucking it in his pocket when Hudson came around the corner, ducking to miss a particularly long stalactite. "That was fast," he said with a small smile.

Hudson just shook her head, arms wrapped around herself as she gazed at the paintings on the wall. "I told you a minute," is all she said, not quite able to look at Lex yet.

He stepped forward and reached out to cup her chin, gently bringing her gaze to his. He leaned in to give her a light kiss. "Did you know that everything you do amazes me?"

Hudson gave him a small smile that was obviously forced. "What are you doing down here?"

"I was thinking over the solar flares and how much their affect on your abilities upset you," Lex explained as he took Hudson's hand and led her over to the wall where the majority of the paintings were located. "I know you would never want to go back in that lab, and I don't blame you; I wouldn't want to, either. So, I thought that maybe we could solve the mystery of you here in the caves, together."

Hudson shifted uncomfortably under his gaze. "I… doesn't your father spend a lot of time down here?"

Lex nodded. "He does. But we won't come down when he does."

"Still, he'll probably know," she reasoned, pulling her hand from his. "And then he would want to know what we were doing."

Lex frowned and glanced away for a moment, eyes returning to the two-headed monster. He stared at it silently while Hudson shifted once more beside him, her tennis shoes scuffling in the dirt. "Do you know what that means?" He asked, shining the light over the pictograph.

Hudson followed the beam with her gaze but didn't immediately answer. The pause before she spoke was telling. "Does it matter? Everything down here is just a story – a fairy tale concocted by some tribe who probably lost hope when they watched their people being slaughtered by the settlers."

"A fairy tale, Hudson? A being with the strength of ten men? Who can shoot fire from their eyes? Faster than the wind? Doesn't sound like much of a fairy tale to me." He continued to watch her until she looked away. "I thought you wanted to share everything with me, Hudson. What are you hiding?"

"Nothing." She let out a frustrated sigh. "Look, I do want to share everything with you I just… this isn't me," she told him, waving her arms toward the cave walls. "I don't have anything to do with a prophecy – I don't want anything to do with a prophecy. I just want… I want to be normal, Lex. Can't you understand that? I don't want to know who I am anymore or where I come from. The last time I demanded answers I ended up with an ugly brand across my chest and a chip the size of Texas on my shoulder. Isn't it possible to just accept what I can do and move on? Pretend that none of this exists?"

Lex shook his head. "I've told you before, Angel. There's no such thing as too much information. If you trust me, then you trust me enough to protect you. You wouldn't have told me as much as you have if you didn't. I understand that, but we have to understand about you before I can adequately do that," he pointed out calmly, reaching out and trying to catch one of Hudson's flailing arms. "I realize you're afraid, and that you don't want any of this to be true, but at the risk of being obvious... you can't run away from who you are."

"I'm not running away." She stepped out of his reach and turned, wandering further into the cave. "I just… I don't want to be the person everyone else wants me to be. The Kawatchee expect me to be their savior; Jor-El expects me to be some kind of ruler of humankind. And you… " She glanced over her shoulder at him, confusion marring her brow. "I'm not certain yet who you're expecting me to be."

"I'm not expecting you to be anyone, Hudson." Lex didn't follow her as she ambled further into the cave, because he was nearly certain that his company wouldn't be welcome, at least, not that close up. "I just want to protect you. But to do that, I have to know everything you're capable of. I hate to sound like a broken record, but if you don't know what you can do, how do you know I can take care of it?" Lex raised the flashlight to illuminate the cave paintings. "I know who you are, Hudson. But that's an entirely different question than what you can do is."

Hudson stopped in front of the wall where Lex knew the indentation for the octagonal disk had been located. It was gone now. "I know what I can do. The caves aren't going to help with that." She looked back at him and added, "Ever since they were found, these caves have caused everyone I care about nothing but misery. Come to think about it, everything about me causes the people I love misery."

Frowning, Lex made his way over to her. "Is this about the vision you had?" He touched her back, giving her a soothing caress.

"Yes. No…. Maybe." She glanced up at him, eyes huge in the low light. "I just… I just want to be Hudson Kent, Lex. Why can't I just be her?"

"You'll never 'just be' anyone, Hudson. You're meant for far greater things than that." He pulled her close, kissing her forehead as he shifted the flashlight behind her back. "I know what it's like to fight against a destiny – I wrote the book on it. But no one is saying you have to follow a particular path. You're free to be who you want to be, to do what you want with your own destiny."

He leaned back to catch her gaze. "But Angel, until you understand the person you are, you'll never become the person you want to be."

"Wise words from someone who seems caught in the same vicious cycle," Hudson remarked.

Lex clenched his jaw at her words, pulling away and turning his back to her. He knew what her ploy was, knew that she was almost as good as he was at hurting others with words just to get the focus moved away from them. But the comment still stung; and what was worse was that she was right. Who was he to lecture her on becoming her own person when every time he took the same steps, he tripped and fell flat on his face. He couldn't even hold on to his own damned company.

He fought back the anger that threatened at her need to throw his own weaknesses in his face. "This conversation is about you, not me, Hudson," he informed her in an even tone. "Even if it weren't, you can't start comparing our circumstances. You've got people all around you who love you, who are willing to help you break away from your destiny. I don't have that luxury, and you damn well know it."

There was a long silence between them before Lex felt Hudson move up behind him, her arms wrapping around his waist. "I'm sorry." She pressed her cheek against his shoulder. "But you're wrong on one thing, Lex. You're not alone. I'll help you, but you have to let me."

He had her.

Lex turned in her arms and replied, "And you have to let me, Hudson. I want to protect you, I want to help guide you on your journey. But you have to let me in, in order to do that."

She sighed, and shook her head slightly. "Lex, I want your help. I want you to be there for me when I can't handle things or when I feel alone and scared. I want to know that I can talk to you and that you'll understand like no one else can."

"Of course."

"Then you have to also accept and understand that I don't need protection – not from you or my parents or anyone."

He couldn't accept that. She didn't know what was out there, she didn't understand what people were capable of. No matter what she'd seen in the last few years, no matter what she'd experienced in Metropolis, Hudson still lived her life in an imaginary world, where people were generally good, and meant no harm. She didn't understand men like his father; for all that she feared him, she would never truly comprehend him.

"I want to help," he told her finally, left with little more that he could say. He wasn't going to beg; he couldn't force this.

"I know." She cupped his cheek and her smile appeared genuine this time. "And that means the world to me, Lex. But the best thing you could do for me? Is to just drop this. Let it go. Just… let me be Hudson Kent. While I can?"

"While you can," Lex echoed softly. While I can implied knowledge that there would be a time in the future when Hudson's hand was forced, and she would have to know these things about herself. When the time of idealism was over, and Hudson was ready to step into the real world...

Lex was already going to be there ahead of her.


"I just received a phone call from Lex. He was extremely aggravated that I didn't pass him on his psychological evaluation."

"As expected. And how did you handle him?"

"I explained that I felt there was quite a bit he was holding back regarding his time spent on the island. That he was letting his deep rooted anger at his father get in the way of his emotional and psychological needs."

"I can only imagine what he had to say in response to that."

"He used some very choice words that included questions regarding my lineage but he surprised me in the end."

"How is that, Doctor?"

"He has agreed to meet with me again, and continue his sessions."

"Is that so? Very good work, Doctor."

"I can't take the credit."

"Hmmm?"

"I thought you'd be interested to know that Lex admitted that Miss Kent had said the same thing I did in regards to his need to discuss his time on the island. It seems her opinion matters more than my advice or working for Luthorcorp."

"I see… I'm not surprised to hear this, actually. Thank you for the information, Dr. Foster. I ask that you continue the sessions as we discussed, and report all findings to me, especially those that might include our dear Miss Kent. Lex has been led astray once too often by the women he's fallen for."

"I don't see Miss Kent as a danger. I met her once, briefly. I believe she truly cares deeply about Lex."

"And that, Dr. Foster, is precisely the problem."