Chapter 24 - Salvage
Objectively, Lex would have had to admit that his first day back at the farm was far from the best day he had had with his family. But even though his health mostly confined him to his bedroom, with the lingering terror of knowing that Clark had done something to him to suddenly heal him and he didn't know when that debt was coming due, it was far from the worst time he had had. His parents were alive, and they loved him, and he wasn't plotting against them against his own will. He was thankful for small blessings.
The food was amazing. Feeling his own bed through his own skin rather than trapped in the back of his mind was a relief. And spending time with his family was more than he had hoped he could ever have again. If he only had one day left as himself, it was worth it for this.
They all ended up retiring to bed early, which would have been more enjoyable if not for the fact that Lex had taken a three hour nap in the afternoon, so he really wasn't tired at all. He managed to doze a little, but for the most part, he laid awake, alternating between terror and absolute, blissful peace.
Until his door swung open at one in the morning.
Lex sat up, flicking on his bedside lamp. If he had felt tired at all before, he didn't feel it now. "Clark?"
Clark stood be outside his bed, his forehead wrinkled with worry, somehow both stiff and tense and fidgeting at the same time. "Lex," he whispered, "I messed up. You gotta help me."
Lex pulled himself to sit up. The pain medication the hospital had given him was pretty strong, but even now, when he was pretty sure that it had mostly worn off, his injury wasn't bothering him too much. He figured he had done a lot of the more painful healing while he was unconscious, which was something else to be thankful for."It's OK, Clark. We'll figure it out. Do our parents know?"
"No. Can we talk out in the loft? I don't wanna wake them up."
"OK." Lex pushed aside the covers and climbed out of bed, putting on a long jacket—summer nights were cold in Kansas.
Clark helped him down the stairs into the living room, and they left through the side door in the kitchen, opening and closing it as quietly as they could. Lex was getting a little bit winded by the time they reached the barn, so they ended up sitting downstairs instead of in the loft. Clark pulled up a couple of bales of hay, and he sat across from Lex.
"What's going on, Clark?"
"Please don't get mad at me."
"Clark, I've known you've been lying to me ever since I woke up. Telling me the truth is only going to make me less angry."
Clark looked doubtful.
"Talk to me."
Clark took a deep breath. "OK, so, the stuff I used on you wasn't exactly kryptonite. It was black kryptonite. I had to search the whole town for it. I heard from Chloe that there were some rumors about its effects on humans, that it could sometimes make people turn good. Like, you know how green kryptonite sometimes makes people in the murders?"
Lex nodded. "You already told me all of this, Clark"
"I left out… what the black kryptonite actually did."
"How can you know? You can't see it in my mind, Clark." If Lex was honest with himself, he was almost a little disappointed in Clark for not having been more careful when Lex woke up. For all he knew, Lex could still be pretending to be good, like he had been after Lionel's death.
"It didn't make you good. It separated your good side from your evil side."
Lex could feel his stomach sinking. "What do you mean, separated?"
"I mean…" Clark shifted in his seat. "After the electricity hit you, there were… Two of you."
Lex blinked a few times. He was going to let the electricity comment slide; it explained the generator. "What do you mean, two of me?"
"I told you you would be upset…"
"Answer the question, Clark." Lex even surprised himself with the sharpness in his own voice.
"You looked exactly like each other. Same body, same face, same hospital gown. Both of you were unconscious, and I went to wake up the other one first. He immediately started yelling at me, and I figured he was the dark side. I knocked him out, and tied him up, and I locked him in your old Room of Obsession."
"You did what?"
"I'm sorry!"
"And then—then you came back and woke me up and tried to pretend everything was OK?"
"Like I told you, I was trying to figure out what to do about all this!"
"Like maybe tell your parents what was going on sooner?"
"I couldn't take the chance that it wouldn't work! And if your dark side was running rampant again, he would hurt my parents if he found out!"
"What do you think he's going to do now, Clark?" Lex shook his head, pulling himself up to stand and pace. "This one was too big for you to handle on your own. You should've known that!"
"I know that now, that's why I'm asking for your help!"
"Let me get this straight, Clark. You… electrocuted me with some kind of kryptonite, accidentally made an evil clone of me, and knocked him out and tied him up in my basement. And you just… weren't going to tell anybody."
"I was trying to figure out what to do!"
"And then you chose to tell me at one in the morning?"
"I went to check on him, and he threatened to kill me."
Lex pinched the bridge of his nose. Clark was going to be the death of him. "He's not going to get the chance to kill you, Clark. You're going to tell Mom and Dad about this, and they're going to kill you way before he does."
"Lex—"
"And if they don't kill you, I will. What were you thinking?"
Clarks eyes begin to swell with tears. Head hung, and he said, "I'm sorry, Lex, I'm really sorry…"
But for once, Lex couldn't feel any sympathy. He wasn't in the mood to tell his brother everything was OK when Clark had taken such risks with his own safety.
"Lex—"
"What, Clark?"
"Just…" Clark looked up at him, a single tear tracing its way down his cheek. "I don't know what to do. I came to you for help."
Lex took a deep breath. "Do you remember what I once asked you to do? What I asked you to promise me?"
Clark flinched. He never had actually agreed to kill Lex it even if it needed to be done.
Lex sighed. He always had learned that if he wanted something done right, he had to do it himself. "You know what needs to be done."
Clark's eyes widened. "Are you going to kill him?"
"I've been wanting to kill him for years. You finally gave me a way to do it."
"You can't. I don't know how black kryptonite works. You might end up killing yourself!"
Lex whirled around to face Clark. "Do you think I care about that?"
Clark leapt up and grabbed Lex's arm. "Wait. We should talk about this."
"There's no time. By now, he's probably already escaped from whatever prison you made for him."
"He hadn't been able to get out of his bindings in 24 hours."
"He'll be getting desperate. You don't want to see what he's capable of in that state."
"At least talk to Mom and Dad!"
Lex shook his arm away from Clark's grip. "You had your chance to do that. You did this behind all of our backs. I'm just trying to salvage what I can and make something good out of this whole situation. You'll get your wish: when I come back, we'll be a family."
"If you come back!"
"That's a risk I'm willing to take," Lex said, and he bolted out of the barn.
