A/N: Hey all! If you didn't see the note on my last chapter, I've been away because of repetitive stress injuries in both wrists. I'm happy to report that they are improving, and I am also happier with my ability to use speech to text now, so I am gradually adding back in activity. This is the first of my regular stories that I am returning to updating weekly. The Monsters & Meteor series will be next. Thank you for your patience!

(I've made some edits to the past seven chapters to fix some typos and improve the overall readability, but I didn't change any of the events, so if you've been following along, you don't need to go back and reread those unless you want to.)

Chapter 23 - Gift Horse

Despite having been asleep for a few weeks, the few minutes Lex spent awake talking to Clark exhausted him. It was also fairly late at night, judging from the view outside the window, so Clark settled down in the chair beside the bed and nodded off, and Lex lay down in his hospital bed to sleep until morning.

Lex had thought he would be out cold once he settled under the covers, but instead, as soon as his head hit the pillow, his eyes opened wide, and he couldn't even think about sleeping, no matter how exhausted he was.

The darkness wasn't there. It hadn't been defeated; it wasn't chained up in the back of his mind; it's simply and truly wasn't there at all. It was like his dream. He couldn't help wonder if he might have woken up from one dream into another, but there were no other signs that that might be the case now. It wasn't as though his biological mother was coming to talk to him, not that she had really been around in the vision. The entire thing had been a manipulation on the part of his darker side to try to convince him to give up the fight, to convince him that it would be nobler, to save his father's life. He knew now that he could never give up that fight.

He also doubted that giving away his money would allow him to win his battle without effort; then again, maybe it was worth a try, now that there was no guarantee his father would die of a heart attack in six months. His mind was in knots, and he was frankly astonished by the level of creativity his darker side has shown. It had certainly been awfully strong to be able to do that. Regardless of what Clark had done with kryptonite, Lex just couldn't imagine that the darkness had disappeared overnight.

Lex wished Clark would tell him more. For some reason, there was an electric generator in his hospital room. He doubted it had been part of his treatment while he was in his coma. He had almost asked Clark about it, but he was sure that he would be met with nothing but defenses. He was going to have to figure out this one on his own.

And in order to do that, he would need to have his strength. Which meant he needed to sleep. The more desperately he wanted to sleep, the harder it became to do so.

Eventually, he managed to drift off.

A few hours of sleep felt like nothing after weeks of unconsciousness. When his eyes fluttered open, light was streaming in through the hospital window.

Lex hadn't quite awoken to his surroundings when he was suddenly smothered in a tight hug.

His muscles all relaxed at once. He would know those arms anywhere. He grabbed onto his mother and buried his face in her shoulder. "I'm OK, mom."

"Lex," she said, her grip growing tighter. "I thought I was gonna lose you."

His eyes stung. It felt so different from the dream somehow, even though it felt exactly the same in other ways. He had known from the beginning that something was off then. He knew something was off now, but at least this was real. She let go and stepped back to cradle his face in her hand, her eyes sparkling as they looked at him with nothing but affection.

And then it all came crashing down on him. The way the darkness has been speaking to his parents over the past few weeks before his accident, the defiance, the disrespect. His face felt warm. "Mom…"

"Yes?"

Lex winced. He wasn't sure what to say. It wasn't exactly his fault that the darkness had been mouthing off, that it had been going behind their back's, that it had hurt Clark and despised their whole family. At the same time, even the smallest infraction against the wholesome beauty and unconditional love their family showed seemed too enormous to begin to apologize for. But he had to try. "Mom, I'm so sorry, about all those things I've been saying to you and... Dad..."

Lex's voice trailed off. The last time he had seen his father, it had been in the vision, and he had watched his father die.

His mom shook her head. "No, no, it's OK, Lex. We forgive you."

Lex pushed himself to sit up. "Where is Dad?"

"I'm here, son."

Lex looked past his mother to find his father standing in the doorway. Alive, healthy, standing straight, a smile in his eyes. "Dad?" Lex's voice cracked.

His father came over to the bed and sat beside him, on the opposite side as his mother, and pulled Lex into a gentle embrace. Lex gripped back hard, ignoring the pain in his chest from what he assumed were fairly recent stitches, and his father took the cue to hug tighter. "I'm here, son. You're going to be all right."

Of course. They would think that he was worried he was going to die. That he had been scared when the bullet had rushed toward him. If anything, Lex had half hoped the bullet would take him out—that he would die, like he had meant to when he first went to kill Lionel. But Lex wasn't sure how to explain his emotional reaction. "I… I thought I would never see you again." That was true enough.

"The doctors say you're stable. They've never seen anything like it. They're calling it a miracle."

Lex glanced over at Clark, who was staring out of the window and trying a bit too hard to look casual.

"We were so worried about you, sweetheart," his mother said. She took his hand and kissed the back of it. "What happened? Clark said he didn't know the person who shot you."

"Martha, let's get him home. We can talk more about it later."

She nodded, and she let his hand go. "Are you feeling hungry? Do you think you can eat?"

All at once, Lex did feel hungry. Actually, he was ravenous. "Yeah," he said. "I think I can."

"Well," his father said, standing up. "I'm going to go talk to your doctor about signing you out of here. I'm sure they're going to ask you to stay in bed for a little while, and there will probably be ongoing treatment, but I'm sure you'd be more comfortable in your own bed."

His own bed. Lex was still reeling from the fact that he was in his own body, and that he had control over it.

His father left the room, and his mother stayed beside the bed, continuing to stroke the back of his hand and fuss over him. It was too much—he was already starting to feel embarrassed by all of the attention—but if it meant he could be himself and not his darkness, he would take it.

The only thing he was unsure about was the fact that Clark was asking him not to look a gift horse in the mouth. Lex kept trying to catch Clark's eye, and Clark just kept staring out of the window.


Over the course of the day, Clark's mind cycled back-and-forth between absolute elation and gratitude that he had chosen to take the risk to save his brother—because who could regret a choice that had led to his family being so happy?—and complete and total terror over the unconscious body that he had left in Lex's spare room in the mansion.

The least of it, the very least of it, was that whenever his father found out what Clark had done on reflex without ever consulting his family, Clark would probably be in for the worst punishment of his entire life, probably including everything he faced after those three months in Metropolis. His parents were talk about how he hadn't learned anything from that experience, and even thinking about those words made his eyes prickle.

But the worst part was not knowing what was going to happen with Lex's other half. For all Clark knew, the darkness could've already broken out of his bindings and escaped from the room. Or maybe Clark had hit him in the head too hard, and he was slowly dying, and Clark would be responsible for murder—though it wouldn't be the first time Clark head been too rough with a human who is trying to kill him and cost them their life. But if dark Lex died... what if he was linked to good Lex? What if they both died? And it was Clark's fault?

Worse, what is his theory that they had broken into a light and dark side was wrong, and the one he had awoken first had simply been worse at hiding his darkness? What if the brother he brought home was only pretending to be good, like he had after Lionel first died?

If Clark was honest with himself, he couldn't really worry about that last one. Lex had acted differently the entire time he had only been pretending to be good. Clark had only given him the benefit of the doubt because his parents asked him to; and he understood why they did. Even if the darkness hadn't taken over, they should have expected Lex to be a little bit different after such a traumatic event.

But now Clark knew the difference. The man they had brought home was absolutely his brother. And that meant the one he had dumped at the mansion had to be the darkness.

Clark almost told his parents what was going on, but he couldn't bring himself to do it. Not until he had some idea of what to do, or at the very least, a better way of explaining what was going on so they didn't completely freak out.

They were definitely going to freak out anyway.

After Lex had gone to bed and both of Clark's parents had retired for the night, he slipped out of the farmhouse and sped back to the mansion. Once again, it was easy to bypass the security.

His heart pounded against his rib cage as he walked down to the place that had once been the Room of Obsession. He had no idea what he was about to find.

He unbent the middle of the door knob—he quickly realized that this was not a permanent solution, since the doorknob would eventually break if he kept bending it in opposite directions—and took a deep breath before stepping into the room and flicked the lights on.

Clark breathed a sigh of relief. The other Lex was still there, and his arms and legs were still tied. What's more, he was awake: he had actually pulled himself into a sitting position and had his back against the far wall.

Any relief Clark might have felt at seeing Lex imprisoned, alive, and still bound was immediately shattered when he saw the look on his face.

Lex didn't look scared, or sad, or even tired. He was just staring at Clark. There was a slight, self-satisfied smirk on his face.

Clark swallowed. "Lex?"

"Hello, Clark." The smirk grew a little. "I'm going to kill you."

Chills ran down Clark's spine. He slipped out of the room and jammed the door knob again, effectively locking the door behind him, and he raced back home.