Chapter 26 - Motivation
Lex's finger had been on the trigger. He had been a half second from pulling it. If it hadn't been for the fact that he heard his mother coming, he would have blown her away. And it would have been his fault.
He clutched at his chest, breathing hard as he lowered the gun. "Mom! I could've killed you!"
"You almost killed yourself." She looked over her shoulder at the tied up figure in the room. "Are you okay, sweetheart?"
Lex's dark side raised his eyebrows, letting out a chuckle. "Martha Kent. Really something else."
Lex straightened up and replaced the safety on his gun, but he tightened his grip on it. Maybe she'd overheard his conversation with Clark in the barn—or maybe she'd heard a part of it and had jumped to a strong opinion. That sounded more like her. "Mom." He took a step closer to her, lowering his voice. "I have to do this. You know I do."
"No. You don't."
"You don't understand. You don't know what he's done… w-what I've done…"
She looked behind herself at the darkness once again, then back at him. "What is he, Lex?" she asked softly. "Is he a copy of you? Or is he a part of you that Clark removed?"
Lex knew exactly what answer he had to give. Of course, good, kind, naïve Martha Kent would never consent to a part of her son being killed, no matter how horrible and evil that part might be. But if he was only a copy, and a dark one at that, she might not mind the copy being killed. "He's just—"
"And don't you even think about lying to me, Alexander."
Lex sighed. She'd always been able to tell. But he still had to convince her. "He's my darkness," he said. "And he's the part of me I've been trying to kill for the past ten years of my life, maybe longer."
His mother frowned, looking behind herself again. "I'm not so sure."
"What do you mean, you're not sure? I've been telling you about my darkness since the beginning, warning you about him—"
"I'm right here," the bound man said.
His mother winced. "We should go somewhere more private," she said.
Lex really didn't like where this was going. He knew that his mother sometimes had perspectives on different situations that he might not have considered, but sympathizing with his darkness now, when he finally had the chance to take it down once and for all? He would have thought she would want that. He wanted it to be cut and dry. Even if it risked his own life, he wanted to be able to just kill his other side and be done with it.
They retreated to Lex's study, and they sat on opposite couches from each other. Lex almost wanted to ask her, again, what on earth she thought she was doing jumping in front of the gun, but he could tell from the look on her face that that wouldn't go over very well.
"Lex, I've been trying to figure this out from the time you first told me about the darkness," his mom said. "When you talk about hearing your voice in your head, you talk about it like it's normal. Like you've experienced it for so long, it's just a part of who you are."
Lex swallowed hard. "What do you want to do? Put me on schizophrenia medication and see if he goes away naturally?"
She shook her head. "I don't know why you were hearing this voice. I don't know why you have, whether it's schizophrenia or multiple personality disorder or some thing else, or maybe it has to do with kryptonite, but… It doesn't matter to me why you hear his voice, you know? I want to know what he is."
"Where are you going with this?"
"What is he, Lex?"
"I've already told you. He's my darkness."
"What does that mean?"
He looked her right in the eye, struggling to keep the condescension out of his voice—she wouldn't appreciate it. "He's my every sin personified. He's everything I lock away in the back of my mind, all of my vices wrapped up in to one person—"
"What does he want?"
Lex blinked. "What do you mean?"
"It's a simple enough question. You say he's the dark side of you. What does he want?"
"He wants… control of me."
"So he's the side of you that cares about control?"
"About power and money." As soon as the words were out, Lex knew they were wrong. He himself cared about those things, too. He had enjoyed his high position at his job, he liked helping people, and he desperately needed to be in a position to be able to protect his family and the people he cared about. If anything, he cared about power more than his dark side did—he had more reason to.
His mom raised her eyebrows. "That's not it, is it?"
"Okay, I don't know what he wants. But it doesn't matter. He doesn't care about you or Dad or Clark. He only cares about himself."
"That might be true."
"Mom… there's something you don't know. After I killed Lionel, he… my other side took over. He convinced all of you that he was me."
Her eyes glistened, but she hardly looked surprised.
That shocked him more than anything. "You knew?"
"No. I wouldn't say that. But I suspected something was off, and after a few of the comments Clark made while you were in a coma, I wondered."
"And you didn't kick me out? You didn't . . . unplug my life support, you were just going to let me live?"
She gasped and tapped the side of his head with two fingers, hard.
"Ah!" It didn't hurt, exactly—he doubted she meant it to—but it was uncomfortable, and it shocked him.
"How dare you," she said in a trembling voice, boiling anger just beneath the surface. "H-how dare you, Alexander!"
"Mom, I—I'm—"
"You're my son. I would never, ever... To think I could... I love you, how could you... even SAY something so..." Her tears spilled over, and she pulled him into her arms.
He swallowed hard and submitted to her bone-crushing hug. He really, really hoped Clark never told her that he'd tried to get him to promise to kill Lex if the darkness ever took over; he suspected she might explode.
"You never talk that way again. Do you hear me, young man? Never."
"I'm sorry. But Mom..." Lex's breath caught. "I… I get that you couldn't kill me before. But my darkness is in that room, all of it. You're risking your life if you let that man go. You're risking Clark's life. That's not worth it to me for... the half of me that would kill him."
"Lex, I don't think you're capable of killing any of us. No matter which side of you is in dominance."
"He's already done a lot of things I couldn't have done alone."
"What has he done?"
"He hurt Clark. He took his blood, and his marrow."
"What is he using the blood and marrow for?"
"He's running experiments."
"That's exactly what he told us. Clark agreed to make the donations."
"But… You don't understand. He doesn't care about the medicinal effects, or about all the people he could help. He only cares about the money and the power."
"But you care about helping people."
"I never could have done that to Clark!"
"But the two of you together..."
Lex shook his head. "What's your point?"
"If he really wanted to hurt us… he's had a lot of opportunities."
"He's not a sadist, Mom, but that doesn't mean he's not dangerous."
"I didn't say he wasn't. But you keep each other in check."
"Not always. He used kryptonite on Clark in Egypt, when Clark found out what had happened."
"Oh no..." Her eyes filled with concern. "Is Clark okay?"
"He's fine now, it was just a few seconds to warn him not to tell my secret. But... what would you do with me if I used kryptonite to keep Clark silent about something I did wrong?"
"You'd be in about as much trouble as Clark is in for electrocuting you with kryptonite and knocking out your other side and keeping it from us."
Lex sighed. He wasn't getting anywhere. He tried a different tactic. "For as long as I've been a part of your family, we've been trying to figure out ways to defeat my dark side. I thought we were all on the same page about that, and now all of a sudden you don't want me to defeat him anymore?"
"I wanted you to be able to keep him under control. I wanted him to stop bothering you. But I also hadn't met him before, and now I have, and…"
"And now you should know why he has to die."
"It just doesn't make sense to me, Lex! If he really just wanted power and control, and to do experiments on your brother, there isn't much standing in his way. He could kidnap Clark, strap them to a table, kill me and your father—"
"I would never let him do that."
"Do you have control over him or not?"
"I…" Lex shook his head. "What do you suggest we do? Let him go? Try to put him back into my body?"
"I don't know. I really don't. But I think he's a part of you, I think there's a good chance you'll die if you try to kill him, and I'm not willing to take that risk."
"It's not up to you!"
"The six months aren't up. It is up to me."
Lex almost rolled his eyes.
"Look. I don't know, OK? Maybe you're right, maybe it's as simple as you're saying, he's the darkness and you're the light, and if you kill him will all live happily ever after, but… If there's even a tiny chance that the man in there is my son, too, there's nothing I wouldn't do to stop you from hurting him."
"Except hurt me," Lex muttered.
"I'll leave the decision up to you, OK? But we need to do one thing first."
"What?"
"I want to ask him what he wants."
That was fair enough. He had a hard time believing she had given up so easily, but he wasn't looking this gift horse in the mouth. "OK. I'll ask him. Right now."
"I'm coming with you."
"I don't want you to watch this, Mom. I'm going to shoot him."
"We'll see about that. Let's go."
He knew by the look on her face that there was no point in trying to argue this any further. They both left the study and headed toward the room of obsession.
His heart sank when they arrived. The door knob, mangled from Clark's many attempts to lock the door without a key, had been ripped away.
And the room was empty.
