I saw a review today that reminded me that I needed to thank Lotornomiko for the idea for this story. It was a really great idea! Thanks!
As for those holding out for CHLARK, just be patient. It's going to be a few more chapters, but I promise It'll pop up.
In the meantime review!
------------------------
After he'd gotten the Kents to the hospital, Lex had collected a blood sample from the trail on the floor. What that had revealed to him had confirmed everything he'd ever thought about Clark Kent.
His scientists had never seen anything like it. The blood was undoubtedly not human. It reacted by boiling when meteor rocks were put near it and it seemed to have regenerative properties once the meteor rock was taken away. The scientists exact words had been, "Whomever this sample came from is indeed an unique individual."
Of course the man had been paid well for his silence, but at this point it didn't matter because there was no Clark to protect. It had been a full day and Clark was still missing. There was no sign of Jason Teague.
Worry ate at Lex. Martha was in critical condition in the hospital, Jonathan Kent had a broken leg, his own father was in a catatonic state, and Clark was completely AWOL. For what felt like the thousandth time that day, Lex paced his study again, glass of scotch in hand.
Nothing was going right for him.
-------------------------------
"Hungry?" Jason asked gruffly as he strode into the room where Clark was, food in hand.
Clark barely had enough strength to open his eyes. Meteor rocks pulsed from all sides of the room, keeping him on the bed as effectively as the strongest chains would have. "N-no," he mumbled. "W-water."
Jason sighed and held a glass to his lips. Clark swallowed greedily. "Alright, Clark, now how about we stop playing games and you tell me where the stones are."
"M-my parents," he croaked out.
"Are in the hospital. Lex Luthor found them and got them help. Now I'm really loosing patience here! Tell me about the stones!"
"I-I don't know."
Jason punched Clark hard in the gut, leaving him gasping for air. "Yes you do!" he screamed.
Clark shut his eyes tightly and tried to block out everything. "No," he whimpered. This was his worst nightmare come true.
"Yes!" Jason corrected angrily. "Yes!"
"I-I don't have w-what you want, J-Jason."
"No, you do, you're just not willing to give it to me." Jason looked a bit better, Clark reflected. His face was cleaned of the blood that had marred it only a day earlier and he was wearing clothing that wasn't torn. Yet, Clark thought, there was a wild look to his eyes, like a man possessed. "What does it take to get you to talk?"
"I've got n-nothing fo-for you."
Jason leaned down close to his face. "You do. I know you know about the stones." In a flash of movement, Jason grabbed Clark's hair and yanked him off the bed. Clark stumbled as Jason continued to yank his hair, trying to get him to move. Finally he just gave up and collapsed to the floor. "Ahhh," he moaned.
Jason's foot came out of no where and collided with his stomach. Clark grunted and curled into a little ball, the wound burning on his side from where the beam had hit him during the meteor shower. "Tell me about the stones!"
Clark shut his eyes tightly. The foot struck again, this time to his back. This couldn't be happening. It simply couldn't.
"Tell me!"
"Th-there's nothing to t-tell!"
"Liar!" another kick and then another. "Liar, liar, liar, liar!" Jason continued to scream over and over and kick Clark more until Clark lost consciousness.
-----------------------------
Lex had been going over the results that his private team of investigators had given him from their perusal of the Kent Farm. "Signs of a struggle," Lex read with a groan. "Kidnapping likely."
Their other theory was that Clark had dragged himself away, but Lex had ruled that out immediately. Clark wouldn't leave his family like that and the amount of blood lost indicated that Clark wouldn't have gotten far. That wasn't to mention the splinters covered with blood, making the theory that Clark had been at least hit with a beam likely.
Jason Teague was still unaccounted for. Genevieve Teague was dead and Lana Lang was beside herself with horror that she'd killed a woman. With his father gone, though, it had been a breeze for Lex to cover it up. But what of her son?
It was the stones, Lex decided. Jason had been and, if he was alive, still was after the stones-and he believed that Clark had knowledge of them. And if Lex was completely honest with himself, he did as well.
Lex had seen Jason's face in that cabin. He would do what it took to find the elements. That was before the factor of grief over his mother's death got to him. What would he do as a grief maddened man?
------------------------------------
Clark awoke to the harsh glare of artificial light and the hard seat of a wooden chair. The bed was gone. Trying to move, he found that his hands were tied behind him, hooked around the chair.
The smell of mold and decay filtered into his nostrils as he slowly raised his head, which was throbbing with a vengeance. He moaned softly and forced down, through sheer force of will, the nausea that was rising in his throat.
The door creaked open, revealing Jason. "Haven't you had enough yet, Clark?" Jason asked harshly. "You can stop all this if you just,"-his voice raised abruptly-"tell me about the damn stones!"
"I don't know anything," Clark muttered.
Jason stepped forward, holding a syringe filled with green liquid. Clark flinched as the substance came nearer. "Are you sure?" he asked with a wicked smile, positioning the needle in the vein right below Clark's ear.
Clark looked up at him and, setting his face in a grimace of determination, said, "Yes."
Jason shoved the needle into his neck. The pain was so intense that Clark felt as though his head was going to burst. This was the pain of the meteor rocks, only they were literally in him-the serum had obviously been made with them.
Like fire it spread down his body until he could hear himself screaming and feel himself thrashing against the bonds that were holding him. It was pain like he'd never experienced it before, and he was certain this was the end-he was going to die.
And then it stopped and he was left, panting and hanging limply against the bonds holding him up, in the chair. The sound of his own ragged breathing scared him. The feeling of weakness that was encompassing him scared him as well.
"Tell me about the stones," Jason repeated.
"I don't know anything!" Clark protested, saying it with as much bravado as his currant state would allow. "I don't know."
Jason pulled out another needle. "You really don't want to do this again," he told him. "I assume that the pain will get worse every time you're injected. Just tell me about the stones and it will all stop."
"I-I don't know anything."
The needle was shoved into him again. Jason hadn't been lying-the pain was worse. If he'd thought that he was on fire before, he was now being consumed by a lick of Kryptonite flame. It was too much to handle.
But like before it stopped and he was left weak again, this time his body completely slumped against the restraints and his head hanging on his chest. "Think on what I've said, Clark," Jason advised before leaving the room, the door shutting with an ominous bang.
Too weak to support himself, Clark hung limply in the chair. He wanted it to stop, but he knew he couldn't give in. If he gave in Jason would destroy the earth as Jor-el had told him that any human who united the stones would do. He would give up his life if it meant saving the human race. He just hoped it wouldn't come to that.
---------------------------------
Lex hated hospitals. Every time he entered one all he could think about were his mother's last days. The faces of the doctors who had told him that his mommy was 'going to heaven and that she'd be very happy and everything would be alright', swam before him every time he walked through those automatic doors. How he'd hated those doctors. When his mother had died he'd been far too smart to believe that everything would be alright. He was being left with Lionel Luthor-he knew nothing would be alright again.
But he was here for Clark, because Clark's parents were in the hospital. Martha was still in critical condition, but Jonathan was out of the woods and therefore available to talk to-not that Lex was looking forward to it, especially considering what he had to say.
He pushed Jonathan Kent's door open and stepped quietly inside. The man in the bed looked far too weak, in Lex's opinion, to be the same man that was Clark's father. But then he supposed that having your wife nearly die and your son go missing did that to you. "Mr. Kent," he greeted him.
"Is Clark...?"
"Still not found." Lex pulled up a chair and sat down beside Jonathan. "Mr. Kent, if there is anything that you can tell me which might help me find your son, you have got to do it now."
Jonathan Kent was not a good actor (although decidedly better than his son), Lex decided, for the conflict of emotions that was washing over his face was far too obvious. "To bring him home, I've got to know," Lex added. "Was anyone at your house when the meteors hit?"
Jonathan sighed and finally said, "Jason Teague. I think I told you that back in the house."
Lex nodded. "Did he look any different?"
"What are you playing at, Lex?" Jonathan asked, his tone slightly demanding.
"It's just that I was fairly certain he was dead earlier in the day-by all rights he should have been dead."
"Well, whatever you did to him, he survived it, although he did look quite a lot worse for the ware when he turned up brandishing a gun at our house."
Lex ignored the accusation, however true, that he'd tried to kill Jason Teague. "He showed up with a shotgun?"
"Yeah. He-" Jonathan stopped talking immediately, obviously not wanting to disclose something.
"Mr. Kent, if you want your son back I need to know what he was after."
The man's jaw clenched so tightly that Lex thought it was going to break. It had never been clearer to Lex just how much Jonathan Kent distrusted him. Finally, after what seemed like hours to Lex, Jonathan said, "He thought that Clark knew where one of the stones was, and that we did by association."
"Do you?" Lex asked bluntly. In response to Jonathan's scathing look that would have had lesser men cowering, he added, "Surely you can't expect the whole town not to notice that Clark's...unique."
Jonathan's eyes narrowed angrily. "Is that why you're friends with him, Lex? Are you just waiting for him to slip up and reveal whatever it is that you think he's hiding?"
Lex felt his hands clench into fists of their own accord. This man always unnerved him in ways that only his own farther and Clark had the ability to do. "I'm friends with him because he is a good person-one of the best I've ever met-no matter what else he is. No matter what makes him different."
"If that's how you feel then why do you feel the need to find out his secrets?"
"Because I'm a man who dislikes not knowing and because by not knowing, things like what is currently happening take place. I can't cover up or protect what I don't know about."
"And would you cover anything up? Or would you exploit him?" Jonathan retorted, his face showing his anger at Lex's words.
Lex felt his stomach flip-flop. Jonathan Kent had just as good as admitted that, yes, Clark was hiding something. Lex had always suspected, but hearing it like that was still a shock. "I would never exploit Clark," Lex replied. "And I want to help find him, but unless you tell me what you know I'm not sure how much I can do."
"There's nothing unique about Clark," Jonathan maintained.
"Are you willing to let your son's life ride on that statement?" Lex retorted. He thought he saw a flicker of doubt in Jonathan's eyes. "Because you know, Mr. Kent, I think it may just come down to that."
"Thanks, but I think it would be best if you stayed out of our families problems," Jonathan replied coolly.
Lex only nodded. "Of course, but remember that I'm always willing to help if you should want me to." Jonathan said nothing in reply as Lex exited the room. Once his back was turned Lex smiled. He had no intention of dropping the issue, no matter what he told Jonathan Kent.