Chapter 38 - Final Exam
Jonathan had always been expected to be the strong one for his family. It was what they needed, and that was what he was committed to giving—what his family needed.
But the past few weeks had been almost unbearable. He knew he had to let Clark reach out to Lex's other side, for so many reasons. That didn't help with the fear he felt every day, from dawn to dusk, and some nights, from dusk to dawn.
He knew he should have been braver. He knew the fear was holding him back from providing the kind of guidance his family really needed. Lex, his Lex, had been avoiding Clark, and when they did talk, it was terse and awkward. Meanwhile, Martha put on a mask of support and confidence, but she wasn't sleeping, either.
Jonathan would have been ashamed to admit how happy he was back when Lionel Luthor had been killed. Rejoicing in the death of another wasn't who he was. But he was protective when it came to his boys and his wife, and that man had done more damage to his family than anyone or anything else had ever done. His death felt like the beginning of a new chapter, the start of true healing. Instead, it had begun a new nightmare.
Jonathan knew that Lex's darkness was an outworking of trauma, somehow, but having had that darkness living in his home...he couldn't help but feel that he had been housing Lionel all this time.
And then Martha had announced a different way of looking at that darkness. Clark had jumped on board. Lex hadn't. Jonathan just wanted time. He would have liked to believe he had learned his lesson from the first go around, when he had held onto prejudice against Lex for so long that he had done damage of his own, damage he had to work to undo. There had been weeks, months, of trying and failing to comfort his grown son, who may has well have been younger than Clark, for all of his hidden insecurities. Night after night of tirelessly working to convince him that his life had value. Of swearing to him that, in their household, he would never be struck or sent away. Jonathan knew some of that had been because of Lionel's abuse, but Lex didn't flinch away from Martha. He didn't cower before Clark. It was Jonathan who had given him reason to fear.
So whatever it took, Jonathan was determined that he should do right by his son. Whether it meant kindness and comfort, or teaching and correction. Gentleness or firmness, holding him close or—God forbid—letting him go. He would keep his mind open. He knew the consequences of failing to do so.
But God help him, he was so tired. He cursed Lionel's name for ever having damaged his son so badly. Of course, if he hadn't, they never would've had him as a part of their family, but…
Jonathan shook his head. It wasn't worth thinking down those lines.
Martha offered to be close to Jonathan for the afternoon and evening, but he needed some time to blow off steam. He went out to the barn and started working his way through chores, until he was sweating and struggling for breath, and then he kept it up long after the sun had set.
That's where Lex found him.
Jonathan looked up in surprise and took off his gloves. "You're back."
"Guess again."
His voice didn't even sound the same. Jonathan didn't know how he had been fooled for months about who was in his home. "Where's the real Lex?"
"I am the real Lex."
Right. He would believe that. "Did you merge?"
A short pause. "Yes." He smirked. "You can't hurt me without hurting your precious fake son."
Jonathan took a deep breath. He had been preparing for this. "You are not my fake son, any more than Clark is."
Lex's voice caught, and then he looked down. "Forgive me," he said.
Jonathan frowned. It was the last thing he had been expecting to hear.
"You've come a long way, Dad. I changed your way of thinking. Now I'm indebted to you."
"You don't owe us anything, son." Jonathan stayed on his guard. He wasn't sure exactly what game the darkness was playing.
"Making friends with you was like pulling teeth, you know that?"
"I know. I'm sorry."
"I mean, I offered you everything. Tried to invest in the farm, brought gifts… Bought your son a truck. You just kept sending it all back. You know how insulting that was?"
"You have to understand, son, Lionel used to play the same game."
"No, I understand. But in the end, you were an opportunist. Like I am."
Jonathan knew it was a trap, but he took the bait. "How do you mean?"
"Well, you accepted all the gifts in the end. You wouldn't even have this farm if it weren't for me."
A little part of Jonathan still felt guilty about that. "We've talked about that, son."
"Oh, I don't blame you. How could I? I knew a good deal when I saw it, too."
"What deal?"
"Well, we all got some thing we wanted, didn't we?" He began to pace. "You got to keep the farm, protection for your family, all guilt free, along with the sentimental warmth of feeling like you helped someone. My other side, he got to feel like he was a part of your family. Just exactly the kind of family he wanted, too. A soft mother. A strong father, difficult to please. A little brother who he couldn't kill by accident."
Jonathan's heart was starting to pound hard. "And you?"
"What I've wanted all along." He shrugged. "Clark."
Jonathan gasped. "Where is he?" he demanded.
Lex held up his hands in surrender. "I haven't done anything, I haven't seen him since I left Metropolis. No, as nice as it would be to lock him up with my other lab rats, he's too much trouble. Better to strike a deal you're OK with."
"O-other lab rats?"
"Never mind them. I get what I need from Clark. A little marrow here, a little CSF there. But I have to be honest with you, just witnessing him has been the best part." He looked up at Jonathan, right in the eyes. "But you would know that."
"I don't know what you're talking about."
"The day you found him in that spaceship. I'm sure you held back, I'm sure you told Martha you couldn't keep him, it wouldn't be right, but the day you found out about his strength… You knew what he would be capable of on your farm. And you knew you were... blessed. No one else would get to see the things you saw."
The worst part about it was that there was a tiny, tiny grain of truth in it. The farm would have fallen apart years ago without Clark's contributions. But as to the rest… "Clark is a member of our family. We love him, and he loves us."
"Oh, I don't doubt it. You would be lost without him. Devastated, I'm sure."
"Yes. We would be."
"You would lose everything."
That was true, too, but Jonathan clear his throat. "Lex, I love this farm. It's my home. But it's just a thing; it doesn't compare to people."
"No, no, I don't mean the farm. I mean the feeling that your life has meaning." He turned to pace. "It's all just an exchange, isn't it?"
"No. It's not."
"Some of it is."
"Not family."
"Your wife only gave me a chance in the first place because I risked my life for a room full of teenage hostages. And Clark was one of them."
The truth in that statement hurt even more. Jonathan's heart was racing so fast now, his chest ached. "Lex —"
"A calculated risk on my part, obviously. I suspected even then that there was something special about Clark, and that he wouldn't let anything happen to me. I got more than I bargained for that night. I stuck it to Lionel, got an in with your family." He smiled, looking down. "Not a bad trade for the pistol whipping. Could've been better, I guess."
Jonathan swallowed against the dryness in his throat. He felt weak, and his breaths were coming in short. "Lex, this is not how family works."
"Really? This is what I learned from you. Lionel, see, he would try to take the other person for all they're worth. But you're a good man. You aim for a fair deal."
Jonathan took a step closer. "Tell me how you learned this from me."
Lex kept an easy, flippant confidence. "You really have to ask that question?"
"I'm asking."
Lex chuckled. "From everything you do. You're so quick to bargain, so eager to give in, as long as you get something you want. Forgive Clark for lying to you, as long as he does enough chores to make up for it. You played the same game with me, but don't worry—" he smiled— "I don't mind."
"That's not why we do that." He had explained this a million times.
"Ah. Maybe you're right. Maybe that's an exception. But you can't deny the timing when it came to your medical expenses."
"What about them?"
"Well, I'd been paying them for two or three months when you found out I was taking Clark's blood. You might have stopped me, but the fact was, you couldn't have put your foot down. I was locked in by then. Send me away, and you couldn't have paid for the surgeries or the follow up visits."
"That had nothing to do with…" Jonathan stopped. His words had come out at a yell. He breathed as deeply as he could "That was Clark's choice. He thought you were doing medical research that would save people's lives."
"Yeah," Lex said, his voice sounding almost scornful.
"Were you not?"
"Oh, I was. It's just, it still amazes me you allowed it."
Jonathan straightened up. "Clark can make decisions like that for himself. He's a brave kid."
"We had to use kryptonite."
"He's not afraid of pain."
"Oh, pain wasn't the problem. You know he had flashbacks to being tortured by Lionel, every time?"
Jonathan felt like he had just been punched in the gut.
"He never told you?" Lex shook his head, stepping closer. "You really weren't keeping as close an eye on the situation as you thought you were."
"Shut up," Jonathan said through his teeth.
"Really, I'm surprised you didn't notice. You know, I thought he was just doing it to feel like he was helping people, but I suspect he was also trying to make you proud—"
"No. I didn't want this. I never..." Jonathan felt his pulse in his ears. His legs felt frozen in place. His arm ached, presumably from holding it back.
"And to make me proud, too, I suppose. My other side was always skeptical, of course, but I suspect even he could have mustered up the strength to take blood—"
His teeth clenched. His mind's eye couldn't help but picture it, the images that had filled his nightmares for over a decade. "Lex, stop—"
"—but marrow, that was a different matter. We didn't have anesthetic, you know."
"You bastard," Jonathan ground out.
Lex looked him right in the eyes, shaking his head, his own eyes sparkling with barely-suppressed laughter. "You should've heard him screaming."
Jonathan lost it then. He swung his fist, and it connected with Lex's cheekbone.
Lex shouted. His body whirled around with the force, landing on all fours. There he remained, gasping.
Jonathan couldn't breathe, looking down at the cowering figure on the floor of the barn.
He had betrayed his son, broken the one promise he had sworn to keep… He could never make up for this. His chest had never hurt so much. He couldn't even feel his heart beating.
He really, really couldn't feel his heart beating.
"Son, I'm—"
But he never got to finish his sentence. Jonathan grabbed his chest, gasping for air, and his legs went out from under him.
And then there was only darkness.
Time slowed to a stop.
Lex never felt any pain in his face. He tasted the metallic saltiness of his own blood, and it tasted like betrayal.
In that moment, he was struck by a clarity he had never felt before. Despite his outward façade of nonchalance, he had wondered, just like his weaker side, and just like the Kents, what defined the split. What the true difference between himself and his other half was. It wasn't strength and weakness; it wasn't good and evil. They seemed to be convinced it was faith in family and lack thereof. Lex couldn't have said.
What he did know was that, in the moments before his weaker side vanished, banished to the far shadows of his mind for the remainder of his life, he had expected that he would feel its pitiful grief.
But he was wrong. The pain he felt was his. And shock overcame him in the clarity of the moment: he had never hoped to win the bet he had made only hours ago in Metropolis. Every part of him had wanted to lose.
It was asinine that he should feel that way. All this did was confirm the truth he had already known. But as Lex pulled himself to his feet, wiping the blood away from his mouth, he knew that the tears in his eyes did not belong to his weakness. They were his own.
He knew he had asked for this. Practically begged for it. Absolutely deserved it.
That didn't help it to hurt less.
Slowly, Lex pulled himself to his feet, only to notice that Jonathan had fallen to his knees and wasn't rising. He was clutching his chest.
At the sight, his weakness suddenly had a voice again: "No, no, Dad… I'm so sorry…"
Jonathan collapsed to the floor.
Lex took a step back, his breath held. He had killed the old man. Fitting, perhaps, that he should kill one father and then the other.
Of course, some rational part of his mind knew that it wasn't his fault, that if Jonathan's heart were so close to giving out that one shouting match, one thrown fist, would cinch the deal, it was only a matter of time. If anything, it was Clark's fault. It was because of Clark that Jonathan had this heart condition in the first place; Lex had heard the stories. Still, he had no doubt that when the story was told, someday, of how Jonathan Kent died, it would be Lex's name that bore the guilt. Not Clark's.
A heartbeat later, Martha ran into the barn, and Lex froze at the sight of her.
Lex was not a person who froze. Well over a decade of training had taught him to be, at all times, cool and collected, decisive and certain. But in that moment, he had no words. He realized, belatedly, that somebody should be calling 911, somebody should be checking Jonathan's pulse. A family member. Not Lex. Not the person who had provoked the heart attack in the first place, and even now, was more concerned with the taste of blood on his own tongue than the life or death of the man who had drawn the blood. More concerned with forgiveness from the dead man's panicked wife, crouching over him, tears already flowing.
Now, it really was his weakness talking. Its hope ripped its way through Lex's emotions. Lex felt every bit of repulsive longing as his weakness cried out, "Please, Mom, forgive me! I love you, I love you both, I'm so sorry. Mom… Please…"
A man lay dying on the floor, and all the weakness could think about was being forgiven.
And they called him the darkness! Selfish! Evil! He didn't compare to his weakness. He could never.
Still, he was forced to hope, his weakness stronger in its convictions than ever, despite concrete proof to the contrary, despite the warm, salty betrayal that pooled in his mouth and coated his lips. He could feel his eyes doing what he did not do, what he was never allowed to do. They were begging.
Martha looked down at Jonathan, then back up at Lex.
"Mom... Please..." Its voice in Lex's head was thick, as though with tears.
Her eyes narrowed, and she spoke in a pained voice:
"What did you do?"
There was a short spike of the most crippling pain he had ever felt in his entire life, and then the longing died at once. His insides went numb, calloused over. At the same time, he felt as weak as he had ever been and as strong as he had ever imagined.
Weak as a Kent would define it. Strong as a Luthor would.
And finally, Lex knew who he was.
He straightened up, and he turned to leave the barn. Maybe Martha or Clark would think to call an ambulance before Jonathan passed. Maybe they wouldn't. It didn't matter. One could only survive so many heart attacks, and if this one didn't take Jonathan past his limit, the next one would. It was nothing to Lex; he was not their son. He was not their friend. He was not even their ally. He was nothing to them, and they were nothing to him.
At last, at long last, his weakness was quiet.
